A Storm of Swords: Knees Falling
by Perfidious Albion
Summary: Sequel to 'A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling'. King's Landing has fallen. Renly Baratheon has usurped the Iron Throne. Robert's heir, a child in exile, is guarded by his maimed uncle Tyrion, but their enemies are many and their friends are few. While Arya Stark is trapped in Harrenhal, in the riverlands the war rages on… and a horde of hungry wildlings draws nearer to the Wall.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** All of this belongs to George Martin, of course. (Obvious statement is obvious.)

This is the sequel to _A Clash of Kings: Knees Falling_. Any reader who wishes to understand what's going on in _A Storm of Swords: Knees Falling_ is strongly advised to start by reading the previous book; otherwise it will come across as very strange.

* * *

A STORM OF SWORDS: KNEES FALLING

* * *

 **TYRION**

It was late evening, the sun seeming mere inches from the surface of the sea, when they came in sight of Dragonstone.

"Land ahoy!" called the lookout boy atop the rigging. Shortly later, Tyrion began to see it. The island grew as they drew nearer, a jagged nest of craggy stone with pieces sharp and black and jutting. The rocks were too treacherous for an approach from this side. They had to sail around the island to reach its great harbour, where they could drop anchor.

A hand tugged at his. "Uncle, that's Dragonstone. Does that mean we're safe?"

Tyrion turned around to see the fear and hope in his nephew's eyes, and he said, "No. Lady Selyse fought with us on the understanding we'd protect her daughter with a victory. Instead we're imposing on her hospitality after a miserable defeat." He kept his voice low to avoid being overheard by the sailors. "She may yet remain our ally but it's possible she will prefer to throw herself upon the mercy of Lord Renly."

Joffrey said, in a small voice, "Oh." He looked as though Tyrion had struck him.

The boy's right hand gripped tighter on Tyrion's left. _It was the right thing to say_ , Tyrion told himself. _He is king, too, and must be prepared for that role; he must know how to think like this someday. That matters more to me than that he's Jaime's son._

… _oh Father condemn us all. How can I expect to fool Lady Selyse into fighting for my doomed family? I cannot even fool myself._

The ships of the royal fleet came closer. When Tyrion had departed from this place for the most recent time, to fight the Battle of the Blackwater, about two-hundred galleys of war had left the great harbour of Dragonstone. About two-hundred galleys of war were returning now, but in a far sorrier state. Their holds were perilously over-full of men, many of them wounded, and even the healthy in low spirits. When they had left here, the smallfolk of the isle had raucously cheered them onward, waving flowers and Baratheon banners and shouting encouragement. Now fewer had come to greet them, and those who had were as gloomy as the men-at-arms. They had left in an afternoon and they came back in an evening; coincidence of ocean winds though it may be, there was no way of putting it better than that.

As she had when Tyrion had visited Dragonstone for the first time, after his exile by Cersei and Littlefinger to broker this alliance, Selyse Baratheon herself did not deign to await them at the docks. She preferred to stay in her castle, which in spite of its vastness appeared to be a tiny outcrop of strange curved shapes against the great black mass of Dragonmount on which it perched. That was one of few similarities to that first visit. There had been a mass of armed men here, once—few enough, and plainly inexperienced, but still men with weapons wearing Baratheon livery, as an attempt to intimidate the delegation from King's Landing with the might of the Baratheons of Dragonstone. Now there were fewer than half that number. Lady Baratheon had given up some of her men-at-arms to aid in the protection of the capital, upon being informed of the extremity of their need. They had fought bravely and held strong for a while. They could have won the battle. In the end, though, thanks to Renly's friends inside the city walls, their greatest efforts had not been enough.

Of all the royal fleet, the folk aboard _King Robert's Hammer_ were the first to disembark. First came a retinue of guards in Lannister livery, then Tyrion and Joffrey, surrounded by the Hound, Ser Preston, Ser Meryn and Ser Alyn of the Kingsguard. There was no applause as they set foot on Dragonstone's stony shores, not as things had been when they left to fight the battle—only silence. The gathered smallfolk must have been bored in the extreme; they seemed to be looking over the heads of the Lord Regent and king. _And why should they not?_ Tyrion thought sourly. _A frightened boy and a mutilated dwarf, what an imposing, regal sight we must be._

Somebody had left a trumpet on one of the warships of the royal fleet, so they had a herald to announce them, though he was no master of this task; his blast was rather too quiet and squeaky. "Hail!" the young man cried in a strong voice. "Announcing His Grace Joffrey of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals of the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm! And his lord uncle, Tyrion Onearm of House Lannister, Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, hero of the Battles of the Blackwater and King's Landing!"

 _Hero of war_ , Tyrion thought with a snort. It was a lie, but a necessary one. A man who took a wound in battle could perhaps be somewhat respected. Otherwise—and probably even then—a one-armed dwarf was a sight to point and laugh at. As for the regency, Joffrey had foisted the title upon him during the voyage, as his uncle Kevan was either a prisoner of the traitors or a dead man.

The smallfolk ignored them still.

The herald seemed disappointed by the lack of reaction. He slunk away, and some of Lady Baratheon's knights emerged from amongst the crowd to lead them into the castle. It could be reached directly from here only if one were willing to undertake a heart-pounding climb; a less precipitous path started on the other side of the island from the harbour. The ancient Valyrians who built this place had not ruled the greatest empire the world had ever seen by being utter fools; they had given at least a little thought to making it defensible.

The king, his Lord Regent and his Kingsguard proceeded towards that path, only to be overwhelmed by a solid wall of sound. It was the smallfolk of Dragonstone, rushing and screaming and shouting at the top of their voices, pushing against each other, as if they were scrabbling for something infinitely precious. Tyrion could not hear most of the voices but from the fray he could pick out a few:

"Dad! Dad! Dad! Where are you?"

"Rob, speak to me, please, Rob, speak to me—"

He looked behind. The smallfolk who had made no reaction to the king or the westermen were surging towards the returning Narrow Sea islanders, calling names and reaching out with desperate clawing fingers. Many of them would be disappointed, he knew. Most of the Narrow Sea men here had spent the Battle of King's Landing on the ships, but some had been on the walls or in the reserves spread throughout the city, and most of the city's defenders had not survived.

He dragged his mismatched eyes from behind him and focused them ahead. There was nothing he could do for them, and doubtless they would think it mockery if he, a Lannister, were to attempt to show them pity.

The voices faded into nothingness behind. He walked on towards the castle of Aegon the Conqueror.

By the end of the hike, Tyrion's stunted legs burnt beneath him, not only from the deformity he had been born with and from the missteps he had made on the path in the darkness, but also from disuse. They were still not half as disorienting as his right forearm. Even now, four days after the battle, sometimes when he went to pick things up with it he was surprised to realise that it was not there.

Baratheon guards escorted him onwards, into the presence of Lady Selyse Baratheon.

The king's goodmother-to-be could not dismiss the Kingsguard from the presence of the king, but the Lady Regent of Dragonstone would not allow herself to be under threat in her own castle, so she did not dismiss her guards as she had done last time they spoke. Here they stood close to her, close enough to overhear the conversation, and they outnumbered the four men of the Kingsguard; Tyrion almost thought the four _knights_ of the Kingsguard, but Sandor Clegane was no knight. The Lady Shireen was absent; only her mother was here. In the past the young Lady of Dragonstone had seemed more favourably disposed towards the alliance than her fearful, protective mother. This, Tyrion judged, did not bode well.

"Now you return!" Lady Selyse proclaimed, her harsh voice filling the chamber of the Painted Table. "The conquering hero of the Battles of the Blackwater and King's Landing! Mutilated now you come to me, a whipped dog looking for a master." Every syllable in her voice dripped scorn. "And _you_! King of all Westeros you were when you were promised the hand of my daughter, and what are you now, boy? Where is the confident lad who spoke to my Shireen so sweetly, in this scurrying rat I see before me here? I'm told that by your uncle Renly's plans your mother's head will be cut off tomorrow morning. What manner of man are you, that you are here and you did not defend her?"

In the past Joffrey would have surely reacted with hot wrath and wounded pride. He did nothing of the sort. He shrank in on himself, wrapping his arms about his shoulders and hiding his teary-eyed face, shaking.

 _Curses. Not again_ , Tyrion thought. For all of Joffrey's life, for all his pretended shows of toughness, whenever he was worried or afraid he had come to his mother. He had relied on her completely and absolutely, and she had been his rock in the world, the force that sheltered him from ambitious courtiers and from his not-father's indifference and drunken rage. He had lived under her protection, retreating to it instinctively whenever he felt uncomfortable or fearful in the outside world, and suddenly in the most brutal possible way it had been stripped away. Now he was stranded alone in a world that had become bewildering and frightening. His mother's death had broken something in Joffrey, a blind man could see it.

Her eldest son had depended on Cersei, more than her others ever had. Tyrion wondered why she had not tried to separate him earlier. Surely she had known that he would not have her forever, and better the weaning come sooner and kinder than this.

"My lady, that was uncalled for," Tyrion said mildly, burying his own anger at Lady Baratheon's words, "and His Grace the King is in quite some distress. May he not retreat to his bedchamber?"

"Oh, let him," Lady Baratheon said with an irritable wave of her hand. "I suppose 'tis you that I must speak with. Let your boy king begone."

The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms tried to wipe away his tears as his Kingsguard led him by the hand. His nose was wet with snot; he was still shaking. By his latest nameday he was three-and-ten.

"Well, my lord Regent," said the Lady Regent of Dragonstone, "I must say I did not expect you to darken my door again in the event of your failure. Tell me: why should I not throw you out of my daughter's dominion this very moment?"

"Because Lord Renly is no more merciful than he ever was."

"And?" Lady Selyse raised an eyebrow. "I know what manner of man my murderous goodbrother is. But it is better to hope for the mercy of a serpent, however lacking, than to lie down before it and accept its bite by choice."

Tyrion said, "He has no mercy."

"He does not," she conceded, "but he has a sense of his own reputation, and doubtless he must know how little threat we pose to him now. Loath though I may be to admit it, men will not choose a greyscaled girl to be their queen. My late lord husband never understood that, or perhaps wilfully blinded himself to it, but of all the trials in his life, he never had to live with how men and other women regard an ugly woman. What little loyalty my Shireen commands arises almost entirely from loyalty to him, no matter that he is nearly half a year dead. If Lord Renly commands that she be sent to the Faith, or even that she be Lady of Dragonstone but never wed or bear a child, she won't greatly threaten his reign."

"Not greatly," Tyrion agreed, to Lady Baratheon's apparent surprise, "but enough. Why allow small threats to remain, when you can have none? Only the goodness in men's souls, and a man as ruthless as Lord Renly will not let that trouble him."

Lady Baratheon's tone was cold as ice. "You may rest assured, my lord, that I am not a hysterical woman overcome with warm belief in the goodness of the man who killed my husband. But his reputation matters to him. If he kills Shireen, men will whisper, and he does not like them to whisper if 'tis about him."

"But they won't," Tyrion said, "because of the very reasons you give now. He will tell them all to his loyal followers once he has arranged to end the life of your daughter. She posed no true risk to him, he will say. He had no need, he will say. He is not the sort of man who would do such a thing, he will say. The despicable treacherous Florents are trying to drive a wedge between king and people after the predictable death of a sickly child by defaming him, he will say. And the men who follow him now will believe him; you will not sway any but a few of them at most, mayhaps not even that. Men always want to believe that all their friends are pious and virtuous and all their enemies devious and cruel, and men try very hard to believe what they want to believe. For if they were to admit such a grievous fault in King Renly, that would mean admitting fault in their own judgement to elevate him and dishonouring those of their friends and family who bled for him; and few men are ever eager to do that.

"Why should Lord Renly take the risk of letting Lady Shireen live? Her claim is worse than his by some House laws of succession but better by others. She poses little threat to him, but what if a later king of his line proves to be poor at ruling and loses the love of the realm? If he is bad enough, any rival will be tempting… unless there are no credible rivals left at all. That is why an enemy claimant to the throne is far more dangerous to leave alive than a defeated enemy lord or commander; by his very existence he threatens the dynasty.

"The Faith may be a safe place to put defeated rivals, from the perspective of Lord Renly. The oath of the black may be safe. Any order you name may be safe… but the peace of the grave is always safer.

"That is why Lord Renly will never allow Lady Shireen to live. Because… because he does not need to, and it benefits him not to, no matter how small that benefit may be. For a man of his ilk, that is enough—no. I misspoke. For a man of his ilk, that is _more_ than enough."

"Damn you," said Lady Baratheon, trembling. " _Damn_ you to the deepest of the seven hells, you accursed godsforsaken maimed dwarf with a serpent's tongue."

Tyrion was silent.

"I despise your words… but he _is_ that sort of man, a man evil enough to steal his own elder brother's birthright and slay him for defending it. If he could murder my Shireen and avoid the blame for it, he _would_ murder her, even if all it gained him was an almost unnoticeably less worried night of sleep on a single day. _Could_ he avoid the blame for it? Among men who already deserted their rightful king for him, and have discarded all honour and law because of his damnable charm… yes. I am inclined to think he could."

"Then we agree, my lady," Tyrion said.

"We do _not_ ," snapped Lady Selyse. "You are a man and have no children, you can never understand. How can I not bring death to my daughter? Flee and her uncle's power will pursue her to the ends of the earth and she'll die as surely as that fool of a Targaryen boy died. Exile is no answer; Viserys Targaryen only lived so long because King Robert was sentimental about hired murder. Lord Renly, a kinslayer, is not. Stay and submit and Lord Renly will kill her anyway, simply because he can. And if I stay and fight for your hopeless cause, he will kill her just the same."

"It is not wholly hopeless."

"No?" Lady Selyse was unimpressed. "I knew you were a dwarf, I never knew your mind to be as stunted as your body. Much of House Lannister's strength is gone. My foul goodbrother holds the capital. Your father has not a shadow of a hope of taking it back from him; he would have the defender's advantage _and_ overwhelming numbers, 'twould be a massacre if Lord Tywin were insane enough to try. The remnants of Lannister power are trapped between Stark claws and the antlers of a heartless Baratheon. That does not look as though it _contains_ _a great deal of_ _hope_!"

Her voice rose, and with the final word she seized a cup of wine and hurled it against the wall. The exquisite Dornish red went everywhere. The cup broke into a hundred pieces, glass shards glittering in the candlelight. Dusk was ending; the sun was almost gone over the horizon. Night was near.

Tyrion trod as carefully in the conversation as he knew he must when leaving the room, if indeed he succeeded in leaving this room alive. "Not in the short term, but we are not without a chance of victory. My lord father has a substantial host still in the field. Lord Renly's host is too great to be defeated in open battle, that is true; such a confrontation would kill me as surely as plunging the knife into my chest myself. But it is the men of the north and the riverlands who stand between my father and the west, and they have many times less strength than the usurper. Unlike against him, open battle against them is not doomed to certain defeat. Ser Edmure Tully is already marching against my lord father; the provocations in the riverlands have sufficed to draw him out. If we give battle, Lord Stark has no choice but to rush to protect his uncle, or else he will lose most of the strength he has left.

"King's Landing is far away. If we can defeat Ser Edmure and Lord Stark, we can reach Casterly Rock before Lord Renly's army does. He _must_ take Casterly Rock, else he is no Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and yet no-one ever has. It is a fortress that has never fallen, ruled by a wealthy House with plenty of stored grain, and a siege beginning _now_ is at the worst possible time to try to overcome that history.

"It has been a long summer. It will be a long winter too, and winter is just beginning. A siege almost entirely in winter! That will be cruel indeed. There is little love for House Lannister and much for Lord Renly in the Seven Kingdoms now, I grant you; but if he has been draining the grain and gold of all the realm to an army that is maintained day and night, every day of every week for half a dozen years, keeping tens of thousands of healthy peasants away from their fields, besieging the Rock, with no end in sight…? Then the shine may yet come off the armour of Lord Renly's reputation. The north and riverlands will never support us against him, but we may plausibly hope for neutrality from the Vale of Arryn and from Dorne. The Tyrells are loyal to Lord Renly without a doubt, but the Reachlords are only questionably loyal to the Tyrells, and the stormlords may rise up in the name of another Baratheon if Lord Renly gives them such grievous misrule. He is well-loved now, for he has never faced a hard test of his resolve and his ability as a leader of men. Once he faces that test, he'll likely fail, for he has never had any interest in such things. Lord Renly cares only for power, not for what he can do with it. If we surrender, all the children of both his brothers will die. That is certain; he will never allow a rival line to his dynasty to live. But if we hold strong, there is a chance that your daughter and my nephews and niece survive."

"Only a chance," said Lady Baratheon.

"Yes, only a chance. I shan't pretend it is the likeliest outcome; even if you think me a liar, if I were lying I would be a better liar than that. The Young Wolf may well destroy us, and if we survive that, Lord Renly may well outlast us anyway at Casterly Rock. We will probably lose this war, that is so clear a child could tell it now. But we _might_ win, and that is all the hope we have. Probable death is not a good gamble, but certain death is worse, and with the state we are in now, certain death is the only other choice."

"You speak proudly of Casterly Rock—"

"I should," Tyrion interrupted, pressing the advantage, reminding her of the hope they had, "for there is no defence mankind has ever built that is its equal, anywhere in the world."

"I _know_ ," said Lady Baratheon, visibly vexed, "but what of Dragonstone? Do you claim that I must pass my daughter into your lord father's care? For I will never do that, my lord. She will remain with me, and her betrothed too, for it would be unwise for him and Prince Tommen to be in the same place, would it not?"

"It would," said Tyrion, thinking, _Well struck._ Both of them knew that the true reason why Lady Selyse wanted Joffrey to stay on Dragonstone was to serve as a hostage, so that she could know the Lannisters were not playing her false. "Dragonstone is less defensible than the Rock," he said, "but it isn't indefensible. Lord Renly has the fleet of House Redwyne, now that Lord Paxter's sons are doubtless either dead or in his custody, no longer in ours… but the ironmen are defiant, and as long as that remains true, Lord Tyrell will never allow most of the naval strength of the Reach to sail out of the Sunset Sea. Well do the Reachmen remember the reavers who've come up the Mander so very many times. He might allow part of it to be detached, but then that part will be too small to overcome the royal fleet."

"Perhaps it is now," said Lady Selyse, "but it will not be in half a dozen years, with all the ports and lumber of the continent at Lord Renly's disposal."

"And if that is so," said Tyrion, "then you will know he is building ships as he does so, and if there comes such a time as you are troubled, you may come to Casterly Rock, and be safe there. But I think not. Lord Redwyne already has as great a fleet as the Arbour can sustain—he cannot build more—and he won't approve of Renly building another royal fleet when, as things stand, almost all of the naval strength of Renly's realm belongs to him and him alone. That is a boon for him, and he surely wants it to continue. He is a cousin of Lord Tyrell and 'tis said the two have always been close. Does Lord Renly dare defy his closest supporters with sudden growth of royal power? Mayhaps. But I do not think he has the guts for it."

"You overestimate Lord Redwyne's influence over the king, I fear," said Lady Baratheon, to which Tyrion thought, _No, of course I do not, 'tis merely that I don't want you to ruin this whole alliance with your mad insistence on remaining at Dragonstone when it will surely belong to Lord Renly by this time next year._ She added, "But there is another way." She paused, then looked pleased that he clearly did not know what she had thought of. That was when Tyrion knew he had won. _She has grasped onto this opportunity, if only because, fool's hope though it is, it is the only hope Shireen Baratheon has._

Humouring her, Tyrion said, "What is it?"

"It so happens that your knowledge is not quite the most recent, my lord." Lady Baratheon brandished a piece of paper at him. "Read this."

Tyrion did, though it was hard in the candlelight. The message was signed and sealed by Renly Baratheon, but the words were almost certainly from a maester's pen. It announced his victory in the city and pontificated for paragraphs upon paragraphs about how virtuous and noble and rightful a king Renly was. It even went so far as to defend his decidedly unrightful coronation in Highgarden rather than either of the traditional places for such, the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing and the Starry Sept in Oldtown: an astonishingly crude and petty disregard of the Faith's power by the Tyrells, born of their keenness to tie all things in the Reach to their own greedy hands. It then demanded submission or death, for the hostages in King's Landing had been 'liberated by the loyal men of His Grace the King' and the royal fleet would not suffice to protect Dragonstone from 'royal retribution'. After that, it spoke of the imprisonment of 'the adulteress Cersei Lannister, the Whore of the West', whom Renly promised he would execute in the morning five days after the day he wrote this letter, the day he won the Battle of King's Landing. Tyrion held back a flinch. He had known that his sister was going to die; it hurt, nevertheless, to see it in writing. He and she had never been close, but she had been his sister still. Now she was soon to be slain, and even if he were struck by some madness and went to King's Landing by the swiftest imaginable ship to rescue her alone, he could not possibly arrive in time. There were only Jaime, their lord father and Tyrion himself now, and certainly his father would hate him more than ever, for Tyrion Onearm had survived where Lord Tywin's golden daughter had not. Cersei would die on the morrow. Like Tysha, like Shae, he had failed her.

Or _had_ he failed Shae? Had she found some strapping young man among Renly's men in King's Landing, whom she would make love to as sweetly as she had made love to him? Would it matter to her? Would she even care about the difference?

The thought was a bitter one.

There was more in the letter, but—"Well?" Lady Baratheon demanded.

Tyrion looked up, irritated. "What is it?"

"The Redwyne fleet," she said triumphantly. With such a smug grin on her moustached lips, Tyrion observed, she looked even uglier than she usually did. "What else do you think 'royal retribution' could mean? No other tool in his power could reach Dragonstone; and he spoke of it after the hostages. Doubtless he meant Lord Redwyne's twin sons."

Tyrion had not thought of that at all; his mind had dwelt more on the execution of his family. He had to force down a flash of anger that this mattered nothing at all to Lady Selyse. "I see."

"Do you? Well then, _see_ this, my lord Regent. I will never abandon Dragonstone, no more than your lord father would let Renly take Casterly Rock for a while as a temporary measure. Dragonstone is my husband's by royal writ; my daughter will never be dispossessed of her girlhood home.

"I intend to assail the detached part of the Redwyne fleet by surprise, _before_ it reaches King's Landing. I suspect Lord Renly demanded that they leave the Arbour as soon as possible once Lord Paxter's sons were freed, for it is likely that he is already wroth with the Redwynes. They have not aided him at all before now, when so many others in the south have laid down their lives for his cause. So unless he has told them about his pitiful attempt to intimidate me—" and she tore up Renly's letter— "we will know of their arrival but they will not know of ours. I will summon to Dragonstone those of my lord husband's bannermen that remain true to me: the Velaryons and Bar Emmons and Chytterings and more. The men of the Narrow Sea will end this threat before it can even begin, before the fleet is docked in King's Landing and protected by the southern army there."

"A wise plan," Tyrion said. He did not think so—he was not even sure that part of the Redwyne fleet _was_ on its way to King's Landing as Lady Baratheon supposed—but he also did not think it wise to contradict her now that she was finally coming to accept the essence of the idea. If this attack failed totally, Joffrey, Shireen and her interfering mother could flee to the mainland and seek out the protection of his lord father's host. "But what would you have of me?"

"Men," she said. "How many able men of yours are taking shelter on my island?"

 _Father damn her_ , thought Tyrion. He had hoped to take the survivors of the Battle of King's Landing with him to his lord father, not to have them die pointlessly in a perilous campaign for Lady Baratheon's vanity. As a proven commander with men who had experience of following him in war, or at least wanted to pretend they did so that they could mask their true nature as opportunistic deserters, he might finally gain a shred or two of his lord father's respect, though never affection. If so, he might not be again placed under the command of Ser Gregor Clegane and deprived of his own command, as he had been for the Battle of the Green Fork—a humiliation that he still remembered bitterly.

He said, "Of those still alive and not gravely wounded? Nine-hundred and six-and-twenty." There had been plenty of time to count them and report to _King Robert's Hammer_ during the voyage from King's Landing. She would soon know anyway, as she would be housing them; if he had told a lie, she would soon know he had deceived her, and she would not be amused.

"That shall suffice," said Lady Selyse. "Many men of the Narrow Sea have died fighting to protect King's Landing, for your sake. Are your westermen and crownlanders willing to die fighting to protect Dragonstone? I have sailors; sailors are never in short supply in the Narrow Sea isles. But I need men-at-arms to fight aboard my ships. You have plenty of men with your lord father already, far more than I have. These will do."

"They will serve you," Tyrion promised, and he thought, _Because, damn the woman, I have no other choice. She is only barely reconciled to this idea, this hope of avoiding death by one hopeless path instead of the equally hopeless path of seeking Renly's mercy. Challenge her now that she is reconciling herself to the idea and she might change her mind and abandon House Lannister in a heartbeat._

When Lady Baratheon gave him leave, Tyrion left the chamber of the Painted Table and allowed himself a single night of troubled, turbulently dreaming sleep in a chamber in the keep of Dragonstone before setting off tomorrow. To his humiliation, he could not even disrobe unaided, with his right upper arm ending at a stump instead of an elbow; he was unaccustomed to relying on only his left hand. Lady Baratheon's servants had to take off his clothes for him.

In the morning Tyrion was dressed in a fine new doublet and breaches, and he made his way towards the harbour with an escort of a dozen westermen who, like him, had escaped by sea from the catastrophe at King's Landing. He was to travel aboard a single-masted cog belonging to a merchant, impounded by Lord Stannis Baratheon early in the war, not near as magnificent a vessel as _King Robert's Hammer_. He resented the appearance of unimportance that this gave him—the last thing he needed when dealing with his lord father's prickly pride—but he understood Lady Baratheon's reasoning; she wanted all of the main strength of her fleet for the sea-battle against Lord Redwyne.

It was a longer voyage than the way between King's Landing and Dragonstone which Tyrion had travelled oft in the past few moons. Seasickness no longer afflicted him; the frequent passages had beaten it out of him, as countless unhappy sailors who had cleaned his vomit from several decks could testify. They travelled with all haste, brushing dangerously close, mere miles, to the unforgiving rocks of Crackclaw Point, even given the fierce autumn winds. They met no trouble around Claw Isle, even though Lord Celtigar had gone over to Renly; with the much greater fleet of Dragonstone nearby, he dared not be too bold, and as far as he knew, this cog was just a harmless merchantman. A war galley would have aroused more suspicion.

The little cog navigated with admirable swiftness and adroitness through the narrowing Bay of Crabs and reached the mouth of the river Trident six days after her departure from Dragonstone. Then she had to sail upstream as far as the cross of the river with the kingsroad. Still, the men of the Narrow Sea were excellent sailors. They worked diligently and well. In another two days they had pushed the ship against the currents of the Trident far enough to reach the camp.

The great host of the westerlands was encamped in a vast, ungainly sprawl, with thousands upon thousands of tents and cookfires spreading beyond the horizon. Few things could compare as places of such density and complexity of mankind. Maidservants and serving men rushed around the camp, some of them greybeards, others as young as messenger boys, drawing water from wells and delivering papers and weapons and waiting at table and doubtless accomplishing many other duties. Men sat by their fires fletching arrows, or drinking with each other, or with whetstones sharpening their swords. Horses pulled wagons between different parts of the camp. Herdsmen looked after their animals, fat cows and swine and sheep and chickens. The finest tents had a dizzying, dazzling array of different banners flying above them, with beasts and birds of every sort and men and women and weapons too, emblazoned near each other in every colour that could be imagined.

The cog was stopped near the edge of the camp. "You! Yes, you!" yelled a dark-haired man whose accent in the Andal common tongue sounded as though he were from the roughest parts of Lannisport. "You ain't gettin' past withou' a check. Westermen pay fair, but we pay _here_ , not up there—" he jerked a finger— "where all them hoity-toities live. Say, wha' are you sellin'?"

Tyrion might have ignored him, but he had two-dozen comrades, some on each bank of the river, each man burlier and more threatening than the last. All of them were pointing arrows at the cog. Many other men watched idly nearby. This was plainly not a good time to be audacious.

Tyrion's temper flared. He was not going to be delayed from speaking to his lord father because of a bunch of over-cautious guards. There was no herald, so he strode forth from where he had stood behind a tall sailor to announce himself, making no attempt to hide his injury; that would only make them mock it more. "My name is Tyrion Onearm of House Lannister, lately named Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms by His Grace the King, when I took him from King's Landing to safety at Dragonstone after the traitor Renly breached the walls. Whatever the traitor's ravens have told you, His Grace lives yet; and as he lives, so too does your duty."

As soon as the guards saw his short figure appear on the deck, they turned and started muttering to each other. Even when he finished speaking, they made no reply.

"Well?" Tyrion demanded. "This camp is large and time is pressing. Take me to my lord father's tent; there is much that needs to be discussed. Make haste."

The guards continued whispering to each other, until one fellow—the man who had spoken first—was shoved to the front by the others. He looked quite plainly as if he wished the ground would open and swallow him up, and his voice was so quiet that Tyrion strained to hear it. "Tha'… I'm sorry… I didn't… tha' can't be done, m'lord. Lord Tywin's dead."


	2. Chapter 2

**LYLE**

The knight in shining armour levelled his lance, charged and dealt a mighty buffet to his foe. The foe, a quintain, span away.

"Well struck!" cried Ser Harrold Myatt. "The traitors will surely tremble before you when you are of an age to go to battle."

Lyle silenced him with a sharp glance. _Shameless lickspittle._ He disliked it when other knights came to watch the lessons, though of course they always did. "Your aim was off," he said. "See how swift the quintain span? That's because you hit the side of the shield, not the centre. Your arm wobbled again."

"Oh," said Prince Tommen Baratheon, his excitement fading from his face. "Was it closer than last time?"

"No," said Lyle. To soften his words, he added, "But you hit it harder than last time. That's good. You just need to keep a steady arm, so all that strength hits where it's needed."

The prince brightened. "I will, Ser Lyle."

"Your arm won't get any steadier by thinking about it. Again."

The prince tilted at the quintain half a dozen more times. By the end of that, a small armoury of tourney lances had built up beside them, but the sun was still quite high in the sky.

"Again."

"My arm is sore," complained Prince Tommen.

"I know," said Lyle. "In battle you'll be a bloody lot worse than 'sore', my prince; you'll be exhausted. You'll have to do it anyway."

The little boy sighed, but he said, "Yes, Ser Lyle," and Lyle gave him another blunted lance.

His blow was near to the mark this time, but too tentative. The helm and shield span around the wooden post to which they were attached, but weakly. Lyle feared he would never make a jouster of this plump, soft prince—far from the martial glory of his uncle the Kingslayer or his father the late king—but he had to try. He had been given the honour of this white cloak. The least that ought to be expected of him was a little patience.

"That'll do for the day, my prince," Lyle said at last, as the sun sank to touch the distant hilltops of the Tumbleton Heights to the west.

"Thank you," said Prince Tommen with a sigh. He did not call servants to help him dismount; by now he knew better than that. He had to do it himself. The prince was too small to swing down from a true warhorse, but his bay steed was only a yearling. Lyle called a passing servant boy to fetch a groom to take the bay to the camp's makeshift stables, and he stood there, waiting.

"I'm tired again," said the boy, "but not as tired as I was before. I think I'm getting better at this. Am I, Ser Lyle?"

"A little," Lyle said. "Slowly."

Prince Tommen seemed unaffected by that remark. "That's good. I don't think I'm much suited for fighting—" Lyle had to hold back a snort, for that was an understatement indeed— "but I have to be, I know that. Grandfather says so, though Mother never said so when I was with her—" The prince spoke of his queenly mother without tears or even interrupting the flow of his words, though he doubtless knew Lord Renly had probably killed her this morning. Strange, that. Other children would be dismayed and weeping at the loss of a mother. _But I suppose Tommen Baratheon is a prince_ , thought Lyle, _and princes are not like other children._ "—but Grandfather says princes have to be commanders, and I'll have to fight for Joffy one day."

"Or for yourself, my prince," Lyle pointed out.

"No," said Tommen. "Joffy's alive." It did not sound like a statement of hope. The boy seemed oddly certain.

"We all wish it be so, my prince," said Lyle carefully, for he was not a man suited to being gentle, "but your royal brother was in King's Landing when it fell. He may be dead already."

"He isn't. Grandfather knows. Uncle Renly would be telling everyone Joffy's dead, so he's the only king, so it looks more like he's won already and nobody should try to fight him. And he _isn't_ saying that. The message on the raven from King's Landing only said Mother and Uncle Kevan. So Joffy got away."

The prince of eight namedays did not seem especially thrilled about his brother's survival, either. He spoke it without inflection, as if it were common for him to discuss such things. _Perhaps it is_ , Lyle thought, unease trickling down his back like cold water. He served the royal family and would do so faithfully—Kevan Lannister's words echoed in his thoughts, _No matter what you need do, no matter who you need face, come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe_ —but he was glad that he was not one of them.

"Grandfather tells me lots of things," Prince Tommen said. "I stay with him when he speaks to people, though it's always ever-so boring. There's lords and knights who talk and talk at him with all their silly ideas for what he should do, though he pretends to listen to them, then he explains to me afterwards why they're silly. There's all the servants too, for how he keeps the camp in order, and the captains of his companies for the siege. They're always complaining at him." The prince lowered his voice in a poor imitation of an older man whose voice had broken. "So-and-so got lots of arrows while my company is running short, I should get more. There needs to be more clean cloth for my part of the camp, not so-and-so's. And—so-and-so shouldn't—"

He went on, heedless of Lyle's lack of attention. Prince Tommen was bright-eyed and cheerful, and once he started speaking it would be a long time ere he stopped. Lyle stood there silently, half-listening, until the groom arrived for the horse. They departed then, heading for the tent they shared.

Prince Tommen stripped Lyle of his armour, acting as a squire, and then Lyle, who remembered his own days squiring for Ser Wendel Hawthorne, stripped the prince's. He had no squire himself. His duty as the prince's sworn sword, the only sworn brother of the Kingsguard who was present to guard the heir to the Iron Throne, precluded such distractions.

Once that was done, Tommen said brightly, "So we're going to supper."

"I'm afraid not, my prince."

"Why not? You always dine with me and Grandfather."

"Not tonight, my prince," Lyle told him. "If you recall, I'm to dine with my brothers." It had been Lyle's notion, in truth. A week ago, he had happened upon his elder brother Tybolt in the camp and briefly asked to speak sometime and suggested this date, for they had not spoken at length since Lyle left for King's Landing with Ser Kevan Lannister while Tybolt and Merlon had stayed with Lord Tywin's host, several moons past. He was not surprised that Prince Tommen had forgotten. It was easy to forget. Rather a lot had happened since then. It felt like a world away, but it had only been three days ago that a messenger had arrived from a small Lannister-held castle near this camp, bearing a message to Lord Tywin from King's Landing… from Renly Baratheon.

Tommen seemed daunted. "But who'll be with me then?"

Lyle had to restrain himself from uttering something foul. "My prince, I am sworn to keep you safe, but I don't do it every hour of every day. No man can. I sleep, and you've survived that. You're in a camp with thousands of men-at-arms of your mother's House, and you'll be in a tent with your lord grandfather, surrounded by more than a hundred of his trusted guards. You've nothing to fear."

"But what about going to and from Grandather's tent? His guards won't be with me there."

Lyle thought to remind him of the presence of his lord grandfather's host, saw the fear on Tommen's face, and decided it would do no good. _Mayhaps he's more scared by his mother's death and King's Landing's fall than he let on._ He sighed. "I'll walk with you to Lord Tywin's tent, and back again at the end of your dinner."

The boy's face shone. "Thank you, Ser Lyle."

So Lyle walked with the prince to his lord grandfather's tent, a gigantic and spectacularly gaudy pavilion of cloth-of-gold, the size of a small house. If a residence could speak, its every word would be of the wealth and glory of the Lannisters. He understood that the boy was afraid but it irritated him nonetheless. Lyle was a warrior, built for war. Few in the Seven Kingdoms were taller or stronger or more skilled with the sword. When he accepted Ser Kevan's invitation to join the esteemed order of the Kingsguard, he had counted it a dream come true. What more could a man aspire to, especially when he was a second son? He had thought he would be leading armies and fighting traitors and villains in the service of the king, not playing nursemaid to a plump boy.

Still, he had given his word to Ser Kevan, the best leader of men he had ever served under, as able a commander as his brother the Lord of Casterly Rock yet far warmer and better to his men. "No man will bow to a young girl on the Iron Throne. Should His Grace the King fall to a grisly end—and with his temperament I fear he may—Prince Tommen will be the last, best hope for the men of the west. And he is my great-nephew," Ser Kevan had said. "No matter what you need do, no matter who you need face, come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe." Lyle had fallen to one knee and sworn that he would, and he meant to keep that oath.

Lyle left Prince Tommen inside and headed away, not to his own tent but to Ser Tybolt Crakehall's.

His elder brother's residence was magnificent, albeit overshadowed by Lord Tywin's. Above a veritable mosaic of stitched-together pieces of colourful cloth, the brindled boar banners of Crakehall flew everywhere. There were also Crakehall standards borne by some among the guards. He had ridden with these men, fought with these men, even lived with these men before the war; he was the second son of Roland, Lord of Crakehall, and they knew his name as he knew theirs.

Any other man, they might have turned away, but they let him in without question, and he pushed through the outermost flap of Tybolt's elaborate pavilion. He took off his muddy boots, as one was supposed to do before entering the main part of the tent, and made to enter until he heard a voice that was not one of his brothers'.

"—ant risk, but I do not think it is destined to failure."

"It _is_ , ser," another voice said. This too was not either of his brothers; it sounded like Ser Petyr Turnberry. "The Trident is a strong defensive position, but not strong enough. With stakes and crow's-feet and fords well garrisoned and reserves well positioned, a host on the north side of it, such as our own, could defeat a more numerous enemy host seeking to cross… but not an enemy host _this much_ more numerous. Lord Renly has more than thrice our numbers at the capital."

"Then what of Harrenhal?" said the first voice, which Lyle recognised as belonging to Ser Dennis Plumm. "Let him besiege us and his host will batter itself to pieces against its walls."

"But why would he attack?" said a new voice, that of Beardless Jon Bettley. "Spread about the north bank of the Trident, he _must_ attack us, to prevent us from pillaging the northeastern riverlands. At Harrenhal he can besiege us with a host that has twice our numbers, then use the rest of his men to ravage the west. Ser Forley Prester's host would fight valiantly, I have no doubt, and yet they would be hideously outnumbered. We might keep our pride, ser, by that course. The price is that your lord father would lose his lands."

"Then we should move against the Boltons," declared Robert Brax, the young new Lord of Hornvale. "We've beaten Roose Bolton before, and now his men have spent about four moons starving in a siege which came upon them so suddenly that they had only a few days to prepare stores of food. They're weak and feeble, easy prey for a lion. We take those castles down, we secure dozens of highborn hostages, and thus we bring Lord Stark to a peace. Let him have his crown. What do we care for the north or the riverlands? The west is where our hearts lie. He might not wish to, but the wishes of his bannermen will force him to make peace and trade us the Kingslayer for their captured kin, especially as the ironmen are raping their way across the north. Doubtless the northern lords want to defend their lands as fiercely as we do ours. With that, we can get to the westerlands before Lord Renly, _without_ bleeding ourselves white by a battle against a host that is of similar size to our own. That means we're no longer standing in the way, so Lord Renly and Lord Stark will be at war in truth, not only in name, and that will take up much of Lord Renly's host. It wouldn't even the odds—the usurper is stronger than us and Lord Stark as one—but it would help a great deal. As a cost we'll lose two kingdoms, but better two than all seven."

"But would Lord Stark ever accept such a peace?" said Ser Androw Kenning of Kayce. "Doubtless he hates House Lannister ever since his father's execution— _damn_ the king for that folly—and he might prefer to give up his pretension to a crown and help Lord Renly destroy us, rather than keep his crown if it means working with us. If he does, we're doomed. And even if Lord Stark were willing, would Lord Tywin ever make the offer in the first place? He's a proud man, and ever since Lady Stark attacked his son he's held it an affront that she still breathes. It's been five days since the battle when the capital was lost, and he's made no sign of seeking terms with Lord Stark."

"It has its flaws," Lord Brax conceded. "But what better hope is there? We can't fight both wolf and stag with so few men left to us. That would be folly. We might as well tie the noose around our necks ourselves and save time."

"If we can't make peace with the Starks," said Ser Richard Hamell, "needs must we crush them ere they can join with Lord Renly. Facing those armies united truly _would_ be tying the noose around our necks. From where are now, we can reach the westerlands before the southerners do. That may not put us in a superb position, but if we're there to defend our homes, by the seven hells it's better than the godsforsaken position we're in now."

"Lord Stark is a fearsome commander," Ser Ormund Banefort pointed out.

"He is," Ser Richard said, "but he's a man, not a god, and no man is invincible. That applies especially if the rumours are true that the riverlords have marched against his will and are no longer listening to his commands. A disunited foe is always preferable."

This evoked a general rumble of approval.

Then Tybolt spoke. "I think we are agreed, sers, my lords," said the heir to Crakehall. "We shall speak to Lord Tywin and make clear to him our position. But as Ser Androw wisely said, he is a proud man. More than a year ago, Lady Stark, that careless _bitch_ , took captive his malformed, lesser-favoured son, alive, and we've all seen and had to endure the bloody bitter fruit of that deed. This morning, Lord Renly has cut off his golden daughter's head. It would be unwise for us to meet like this too frequently; it is best that we draw up our plans here and now. If he should once again ignore us, inflamed by his will for vengeance, what should we do then?"

"He's got us into this mess," said Ser Flement Brax hotly. "It's got him a crown for his grandson, though a crown too unsteady to keep. What has it got us? My lord father and many of our House's men dead in the utter horror that was the Battle of the Camps—a curse from all seven hells upon the Kingslayer's folly. My eldest brother Tytos captured by the Starks, then, after we ransomed him at great expense, sent to King's Landing with most of the Brax men-at-arms in this host, under Kevan Lannister. He served the Lannisters as master of coin and served them well, yet in that godsforsaken place the southerners killed him anyway. We were one of the mightiest Houses of the west and what now has become of us? Only Robert and I remain, and our men-at-arms number only a few hundred. If all of that was for nothing… if he can't get us out of this mess…"

"Hornvale does not stand alone," said Ser Androw. "Kayce stands with you. We did not suffer as badly as you to the Kingslayer's incompetence—we weren't unlucky enough to be tasked to provide many men for Ser Kevan's doomed host—but I lost my lord father in the Whispering Wood, a hostage of Lord Stark, along with many men good and true. Lord Tywin's ambition has brought the west blood, death and failure, worse than Lord Tytos ever did. It may well be that Casterly Rock soon has a lord whose name is not Lannister. If so, so be it. My lord father matters more."

"But what if we fail?" asked Ser Dennis Plumm. "The Lannisters have ruled for ten-thousand years. If Lord Tywin is resistant, he might yet pull through."

"The Lannisters ruled for ten-thousand years by being cunning and flexible," said Ser Merlon, the youngest of the Crakehall brothers. "Lord Tywin is neither. He is too proud to accept a lesser humiliation to avoid a greater one. Truth be told, he should have acknowledged that and granted Lord Stark his independence as soon as the Kingslayer was taken, instead of believing he could defeat both House Baratheon and House Stark. He tried to win the war on both fronts, stretching too thin, so he lost both of them. And there is a power that exists now that did not exist for almost all of those ten-thousand years—the Iron Throne. The Seven Kingdoms united. Lord Renly can bring the power of the whole continent to bear upon Casterly Rock, maintaining a long siege, which nobody could do before Aegon the Conqueror. The Targaryens proved that even the mightiest of all Houses can fall if the rest of the realm unites against it. What, then, of House Lannister?"

"Fairly spoken," Ser Dennis said with a sigh. "I hope it will not come to that, but if it does, you have my sword."

"Thank you, ser, and I also thank Ser Tybolt for hosting this occasion," said Lord Brax. "Given who arranged this supper of ours, and what fate has befallen my House, I doubt it shall surprise any of you to hear that I am committed."

"I know not whether I am lord or only knight, whether my lord uncle is dead or alive," said Ser Osbert Kyndall. "Either way, he is in King's Landing now, not the westerlands. That fact speaks of Lord Tywin's legacy with more eloquence than any mere words may possess. Let's hope he will see sense; but if he does not… well, some things need not be spoken."

"The old are too afraid of a glory that is past, quaking in their boots at memories of fear of Castamere," Jon Bettley proclaimed. "Now it falls to us to do what must be done. We will make Lord Tywin see reason, or if we cannot, he will learn through iron and fire that the humble beetle has sharp pincers and is not to be heedlessly stepped on."

"None can doubt my valour or my loyalty," said Ser Jaime Peckledon, who had lost a leg in the Battle of the Green Fork. "I have fought and bled for Lord Tywin. And yet my lord father has been in Stark hands ever since the Battle of the Camps, and now that all of our northern hostages belong to Renly, how can he be brought back? It is written in the _Seven-Pointed Star_ that sons have duty to their fathers, and I am his only son. I will do what it takes to get him home. _Whatever_ it takes."

"This is, of course, a last resort," said Ser Ormund Banefort.

"Of course," said Lord Brax, and others, including Tybolt and Merlon, echoed this.

"Good. My cousin Willem trusted the Lannisters blindly, and what did he get? He stood so high in Kevan Lannister's esteem as to be made master of laws, and yet they couldn't save him; he was taken captive by Lord Renly anyway. I will trust the Lannisters and follow them loyally, but not blindly. If the worst comes to the worst, and they are leading us to disaster…" There was a short silence. "My lord, I am with you. What must be done must be done."

The pledges went on, spilling from more and ever more mouths like a landslide gathering momentum as it swept down to kill those below. Tybolt's tent had many guests. Lyle recognised the voices, and the Houses of the men they belonged to. The Houses that were absent—Houses Doggett, Marbrand, Lydden, Moreland, Algood, Serrett, Falwell, Myatt, Ferren, Payne and more—were as important to notice as those that were present. Lyle realised that every single one of the Houses that had been invited had lost at least one close relative in the war—some in the Battle of the Green Fork, some in the Battle of the Banks, some in the Battle of the Blackwater, or any of countless other battles, but most of them in the catastrophic defeats of the hosts of Ser Jaime and Ser Kevan Lannister: the Battle in the Whispering Wood, the Battle of the Camps and the Battle of King's Landing. Lord Tywin had marched out of the westerlands with about forty-thousand men. There were a little fewer than fifteen-thousand here. Those lost men had Houses that had not forgotten them.

Lyle stumbled away, without his usual confident stride. His family's household guards did not challenge him. _What have I heard? No, I know that, perfectly well. Let's not flee the question. What am I going to do about it?_

It was not quite treason, he tried to tell himself. It was one short step away. Tybolt and his friends meant to betray Lord Tywin unless he carried out the war in the manner they wished. If they betrayed Lord Tywin, doom would doubtless also come to his grandson—not to the young king or Princess Myrcella, safely far away in Dragonstone and Dorne, but to Prince Tommen.

A stab of horror embedded itself in Lyle's chest.

Yet Tybolt was his brother, and was only doing as he thought best, to get their father back. They had spent their childhood together in Crakehall. Tybolt had helped teach him how to use a sword, though Lyle had greater skill with it now. Lord Tywin would surely react with death to any suggestion of treason. How could he betray his family?

… _he will be the last, best hope for the men of the west. And he is my great-nephew. No matter what you need do, no matter who you need face_ , he remembered, _come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe._

 _That is my choice._

He reached Lord Tywin's tent and waited patiently outside for another hour, until the guards allowed him in, at a signal from inside.

Lord Tywin was standing. "My grandson is tired, ser."

"I will take him, my lord," said Ser Lyle of the Kingsguard.

He would say nothing. He would hope that all went well between Lord Tywin and his bannermen. He would not needlessly aggravate the situation among the westerlords, forcing it to spiral into civil war. But if it were not well… well, his lord father had Tybolt and Merlon to look after him. Tommen had no children or mother or father or adult siblings. He had only Lyle. Lyle would take care of the boy and he would stay true to the oath he had sworn to Ser Kevan, no matter what the cost.

Prince Tommen went to sleep, watched over by his sworn protector. The next day passed without incident. So did the day afterwards, and then the day after that, as the camp gathered itself and prepared to depart, though nobody other than Lord Tywin yet knew where he planned to go. It was the day after _that_ , a bright day with thick soft white clouds like lumps of flour and a golden sun shining, that Lord Tywin decided to inspect the prince's skill.

It was a day for the sword, though Prince Tommen was far too young to use anything but a wooden one. Lord Tywin seemed satisfied, or at least not openly contemptuous, of the advances the prince had made since he had arrived here. The plump little boy now had a little more strength of arm, a better stance and a slight degree of knowledge of how to dodge and feint and parry.

After he witnessed the prince's lesson, surrounded by more than a hundred red-cloaked men-at-arms with lion-shaped halfhelms, Lord Tywin called for the groom who had been standing there with his great black stallion. The Lord of Casterly Rock mounted swiftly and easily, still a man fit for battle despite his years, to make his way back to his tent.

The horse bolted.

It happened in an instant. One moment Lord Tywin was unsteadily in the middle of mounting, one leg over his great black stallion, the other in mid-air and not yet fully placed. The next, the warhorse tore away from the groom holding the reins with a burst of strength. His sudden motion hurled Lord Tywin off his back, to strike the dirt with a decisive _snap_. Around the Lord of Casterly Rock's neck there formed a red pool.

The stallion, apparently ignorant of what he had just done, stopped at a barrel of fresh apples and began to eat, a foot away from one of the Lannister household guards, bewildered and terrified.

For a few endless seconds, like an age, the crunching of the apple was the only sound.

"Oh gods," said one of them, breaking the spell of silence, and then there were others, a thousand exclamations of surprise and horror and dismay. Somebody cut off the head of the horse with a single powerful swipe of a sword. What were they to do? What _could_ they do? How had this happened? How could it be, that Tywin Lannister was dead?

But Lyle's thoughts moved quickly and simply. Lord Tywin had ridden that thoroughbred black stallion for years, and he had never been so temperamental and unreliable. This was no natural death.

Lyle grasped Prince Tommen by the shoulders. The boy was staring and mumbling in shock. Giving up, Lyle picked him up and threw him over a shoulder. He had never been so grateful to be such a big man; men called him 'Strongboar' for House Crakehall's sigil and for that he was so broad and tall. With the sense of purpose as he marched and with the authority lent to him by his size and by the snow-white Kingsguard cloak that blew in the breeze behind his shoulders, stunned and horrified men flinched from his presence, clearing a path for him.

He fled towards the prince's tent.

"What is it, what's happened, what's happening, where are we going?" the boy called to him.

"Quiet!" Lyle hissed. "I've no idea how it could possibly be done, but your lord grandfather was murdered and I know who's responsible. There are those who don't trust him, who think the westerlands will lose this war and don't want to be on the wrong side of it. They've grown bolder than I thought possible for them to be, so early, so shortly after… I was wrong. I'm sorry." _Oh gods, my brothers, beloved brothers, oh Father Above judge us all, how could you have worked with men so foul and evil as to arrange such treachery as this?_ "They'll doubtless come for you next, my prince, and the only thing they don't know is what I know of them. To spoil their plans I must move quickly. We have to go. We have to run."

Tommen Baratheon made no reply. He was trembling; his eyes were wet with tears.

"Oh Mother's love, I don't have time for this. My prince, where's your gold?"

"Gold?"

" _Gold_ , my prince, the gold your lord grandfather left you, as your allowance. _Where is it_?"

"Here," Tommen said, crawling to a corner of his princely tent and picking up a sack from under a chair. Lyle took it; it was heavy. He looked inside.

"Bugger me with an axe!"

"What does that mean?" said Tommen curiously, while Lyle thought, _Thank the gods for Tywin Lannister's extravagance._

"First bit of good news in this whole bloody mess," he muttered. "Right then, my prince, we've got to go. Stay inside. I'll be back soon."

He emerged from the tent and accosted a passing servant with a strong beefy arm. The news must have spread; the camp was already in chaos.

"What is it, ser?" snapped the man, his courtesy failing him. "Strongboar? If you haven't heard—"

"Sorry," said Lyle, and struck the serving man over the head with the flat of his sword. It was a solid blow. The man fell boneless to the dirt at once. Under other circumstances, somebody would have noticed and raised an alarm. Now the whole camp was consumed by panic. Order might later be restored, but for now he could get away with it.

Lyle quickly dragged the man into the prince's tent and stripped him of his clothes. He then took off his armour and fine, soft white cloak, unaided by the panicked prince, and put on the servant's patched, rough garb instead. He kept only his scabbard and his sword. With that, hunching his shoulders to hide his tremendous height, he ventured out again and found a serving boy, whom he grabbed by the ear. Soon this servant had also been divested of his clothes. Lyle felt a little guilty, but they were only servants, and besides, they would survive. Their lives were not in peril. The prince's was.

Lyle rushed back to Prince Tommen's tent. The boy was, at least, composed enough to undress and dress himself quickly, if motivated by sufficiently loud and angry shouting:

"It's your _life_ , my prince! Hurry! Be quicker about it!"

Shortly afterwards, a tall serving man and a bald servant boy could be seen rushing through the camp. A scabbard containing a fine sword and a bag full of gold were hidden under Lyle's cloak. Tommen's locks of lovely golden hair, roughly shorn by a sword, lay in the same bag, as did Lyle's white cloak; if those things had been left in the tent, that would make it easier for the traitors to find them. The whole camp was in disarray. Nobody knew what to do or who should be giving orders. Some thought there were enemies in their midst (though, Lyle acknowledged, that might be partly his fault, as he might have been seen knocking over the two servants). Others thought there were traitors. Others, both. Others, nobody at all and everyone had better calm down and do what _they_ say. In the absence of any enemies or obvious traitors openly raising arms in the camp, the latter group would probably come to dominate, led, of course, by the treacherous westerlords; Lyle had no doubt that the conspiracy had drawn up plans for the immediate aftermath of Lord Tywin's murder. _By that time, the prince must be well away._

Thanks be to the gods, Prince Tommen was quiet and meek as they rushed out, paralysed in his thoughts by overwhelming fear. At last, as they neared the downstream edge of the camp, Lyle started eyeing merchants venturing into the camp, looking for one who could be surreptitiously used for a disguise. He found a single man with a wagon, of Essosi looks. _Perfect._

Lyle pulled the olive-skinned stranger into an unoccupied tent, clapping a hand over the man's mouth so that he could not scream. "Deal for you," he muttered. "Give me and my son some clothes, keep _very quiet_ , and it'll serve you well." With his left hand only, he opened his cloak and pulled out the bag of gold. "Five dragons." The clothes would be worth a small fraction of that amount; this was to help to motivate the trader, so that he made his decision quickly, without having to stop and think.

Only then did he release a hand from the trader's mouth.

"Very good, yes, of course," the trader babbled nervously, eyeing the large sword that Lyle had just partially removed from its scabbard with his now-free right hand.

" _Now_."

The Essosi trader provided the clothes.

"Now go back to the ships."

Lyle and Tommen, now looking like respectably clad travellers rather than runaway servants, headed to the edge of the camp, as far upstream as merchants' ships were allowed to go. Their new companion came with them, with his wagon. The wagon was crucial; it allowed Lyle and Tommen to appear to be a group of merchants who had been selling their wares in the camp.

After the lucky trader was given his gold and allowed to head away, while Lyle was looking for likely ships, the prince gathered his wits enough to whisper: "Ser Lyle, where are we going?"

"To the only place in all the Seven Kingdoms that still holds true to the king," Lyle said. "Dragonstone."


	3. Chapter 3

**ARYA**

Hot pain burnt in Arya's cheek, struck by a heavy hand. "Up, lazy bitch!"

As ever, Pinkeye rose late, and, as ever, he was in a foul mood when he did. He already had the day's first cup of ale. It would be far from the last. Bleary-eyed and dozy though he was, his slaps still stung. They were better than the kick of Weese's sharp-toed boots, but that was not saying much.

Arya rose from her bed of tough old straw and broke fast on barley soup. It was thin, in truth, more like water than anything else, with floating traces of vegetable, but she got a crust of stale bread with it. That was the best part of the meal.

Pinkeye set about instructing the servants on their work, between quaffs of his ale. When eventually he turned to Arya, he ordered, "Weasel, you go back to the Widow's Tower. Them stairs won't clean 'emselves."

"I'll work on it," Arya said, her head lowered.

"Not your old layabout ways. Work hard. Get it done today— _really_ done this time, not a lie, you hear me? You do your job m'lord's feeding you for and you ain't gettin' no more meals till you done it."

"I _have_ been working hard," said Arya truthfully. She had stayed up late yesterday. That was why she had awoken later this morning than Pinkeye—a rare thing, for his drunken sleep was never short. "It's just, the Widow's Tower is _huge_ …"

"No backtalk!" Pinkeye slapped her; she fell over and her head was flung to the side by the force of the blow. He was angry, certainly, but there was another expression in those runny eyes, one that she had not seen before. For one mad moment she thought it was fear. "I can't put everyone on it, all's too busy, everyone's needed for somethin' nowadays. Six days I give you clean them stairs, and what's I got? Nothin'! The castle's dungeons are under that tower. Ser Amory said 'make it ready for in'abi… inhabi…' well, somethin'. Ser Amory says his lordship might end his siege o' them castles, the ones Lord Bolton's men are holed up in; his lordship might take 'em by storm and come back here with wagonloads of northern prisoners, an' use Harrenhal to hold out against Lord Renly. And if his lordship _does_ , what if he sees the Widow's Tower all dusty, when it was shinin' clean when he and his host left Harrenhal with most of the servants? Think 'e'll be pleased? What'll happen to old Mebble then, you reckon? Selfish slut." He hit her again. "Now get on with it, and don't you come back till it done, else I'll beat you bloody."

So Arya took her pail and crossed the bridge of stone from Kingspyre Tower to the Widow's Tower, even though, ever since Lord Tywin's host departed, Ser Amory the castellan and his servants lived only in Kingspyre. She had cleaned a great deal of the upper stairs already, though, she noticed with a sinking feeling, dust was beginning to resettle on some of them. She found the spot where she had stopped yesterday, knelt down and resumed washing.

She scrubbed the stairs with vigour for all of that day, working her way down the tower, despite it making her hands red and raw. By the end of the day, they were bleeding. She took some sips of the filthy water. It was all she had. Bitterly hungry, deprived of her bed in her little niche in Kingspyre, she curled up on cold bare rock in the darkness, taking care to place her hands so that they bled more on her shift than on the stone of the deserted tower she had been cleaning.

However much she wriggled and rearranged herself, she was uncomfortable. It took her a long time to get to sleep that night.

"Ser Amory," she said, first and foremost, thinking of herself as much as of poor Liane. Her voice was a whisper, despite that there was nobody to hear. "Pinkeye. Ser Gregor, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn. The Tickler and the Hound. Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. King Joffrey."

She left Queen Cersei out of her prayer. She still remembered hearing the news of the capital's fall and the queen's impending execution, by eavesdropping on some of Ser Amory's soldiers a week ago. It was one of the best memories she had.

Arya dreamt of that moment tonight, not for the first time. She had not seen it, but in her mind it took place just as her father's had done. Queen Cersei would confess her treason on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor, apologising for Father's death (and maybe other things, but that was what mattered). Then King Renly—whom she barely remembered, for she had never spoken with him long; now he was king, she imagined him looking like King Robert—would order some southern knight to take her head. The difference was, Queen Cersei was screaming and crying and begging for mercy that would never come, no more mercy than she had granted Father.

It was a nice dream. Arya was a little disappointed when it turned into her usual dream about running through woodlands as a wolf.

Arya awoke late, a while after dawn, without Weese or Pinkeye to hit her. She had been very tired. She was no longer tired, but she _was_ hungry, so fiercely hungry her stomach felt it as a constant pain.

She ignored it. There was work to be done.

She scrubbed more steps that day, drawing nearer to the bottom of the tower. She had started at the top. It was in the late morning, while she was doing this, that she saw a pair of men-at-arms crossing a broad corridor below. That was not typical but not unheard of. There were no more than three-hundred men-at-arms in Harrenhal, she judged, and many of them remained in Kingspyre; the remainder were like ants spread around the cavernous enormity of the rest of the castle. From the manticore badges on their chest, they were not from the half of the garrison that consisted of men sworn to the Braxes of Hornvale. They were from the other half, the men of House Lorch. _Ser Amory's men_ , she thought. She hated them.

They had not seen her.

"…a hope," one of the soldiers was saying. He had a thick, bushy beard. The Lorch men-at-arms were too far for her to see much else. "Aye, Lord Renly's got few ships to speak of, but old King Robert didn't neither. Who gave a shit 'bout that? He had the mainland, that's what mattered. So he built a fleet—it took him, what, a year? Some'at like that anyway—and he cleared out the Mad King's spawn what were squattin' on Dragonstone. Lord Renly can do the same. It's like the Mad King's War come again, only this time, that fucker Renly is old King Robert and we westermen are the Targaryens. And _they've_ got the Narrow Sea between them and the armies of the south. What've we got? We're fucked like a Lannisport lass when the fleet comes in—a thousand cocks and they just keep comin' and they don't stop comin'."

"That's a bit grim," said the other, who was clean-shaven, or, at least, not as noticeably bearded. "Have some faith. Lord Renly's the shittest commander the gods ever made, mark my words. Lord Stannis bled him badly in the Clash of the Stags, Ser Kevan fucked him up the arse on the Blackwater, and he only won the Battle o' King's Landing 'cause them crownlander turncloak bastards rioted. Elsewise he'd got crushed up against the walls, I tell you. The northmen will race to suck his cock, aye, but if we all come to Harrenhal he'll charge like a fool into the teeth of our defences—he's Lord Renly, that's what he always does—and die there. Then, once he's wasted his army bashing it against high walls, we can take back the capital and then march on the south."

"Dunno about that," said the bearded man. "What if he doesn't? Lord Renly's no great leader, but might be he's noticed that. And the Young Wolf is another thing. Once Lord Stark's joined Lord Renly, he'll tell him to surround us at Harrenhal and lay siege with part of the army but use most to go back to the westerlands and burn them black. If Lord Renly listens, our lords'll have to surrender."

"Yeah, mayhaps we're fucked," the clean-shaven man admitted. "But mayhaps we aren't. No man ever won a penny bettin' on Lord Renly to be wise. When our army's safe in a nice big castle, we got a chance to stop him, at the least."

"Don't think so, Tom," said the bearded man gloomily. "What if they never get to Harrenhal? How are them lords gonna agree on anythin'? Who's goin' to be in charge now?"

Arya drew in breath sharply. Did they mean what she thought they might mean? She held herself very still.

"The Father Above knows," said Tom with a shrug. "Lord Hawthorne, might be? Lord Falwell? Lord Serrett? Lord Lydden? Maybe Lord Brax or Ser Addam—they're young, but what with the Tullys marchin' on us now, might be we need a young fightin' man to command."

 _The Tullys marching?_ Arya knew that meant her great-uncle, her uncle or her grandfather. _Are they near?_ But they would not recognise her, unless Mother was there…

"None of them'll be as good as Lord Tywin, though," said the bushy-bearded man.

"Aye." They had moved past, so Arya could not see their faces any more, but she heard Tom sigh. "Fuckin' mess, that. And such a weird business. Who'd thought it? King's Hand, king's granddad, Lord o' Casterly Rock since ere I was born, and he got killed by his own horse what ran away to eat when he's mountin' it. I always thought it takes a great battle or some'at to slay a man like that, an' it's a barrel of apples."

They spoke more as they receded into the distance, but she paid no attention. They thought a horse had killed Lord Tywin. Arya knew better. She remembered the death of Weese, whose own loyal dog had been somehow bewitched to tear out his throat. The true murderer had lurked above them as they passed. The horse was not responsible for Tywin's death; it was Jaqen H'ghar— _no, I mustn't think that, that was a lie, he lied to me, I asked and he admitted it_ —no, it was a Braavosi man who did not have a name. And it had not really been the nameless Braavosi man, any more than it had been the horse; for like the horse he had done as he had been made to. Weasel was a mouse; but Arya Stark had killed Lord Tywin Lannister as surely as if she had put a sword in his chest with her own hand, simply by whispering a name.

It occurred to her, darkly, to wonder what Ser Amory and his garrison would do to her if they knew. She could think of all sorts of gruesome possibilities. It did not worry her. The man who had no name had not been caught, or else the Lorch men-at-arms would have referred to a murderer instead of a horse. He would not tell the westermen, and of course she never would.

It pleased Arya to hear of her nameless killer's victory. Oh, King Renly had won a great battle, and that had been very good news… but he had _lost_ a great battle too, the Battle of the Blackwater, and that had not stopped him from winning the next one. Lord Tywin might have defeated him and taken King's Landing back for Joffrey. That was why she had named him. Joffrey had killed Father and for that he deserved to die, but he was not _dangerous_ , not in the same way as Lord Tywin was; he could not fight and lead battles. He was a king and Tywin Lannister was a lord, but he only had power as long as Tywin Lannister fought for it. Lord Tywin's death would hurt the Lannister cause, and thus help her family, more than Joffrey's would have done. Now Lord Tywin was dead and the host of the westerlands was leaderless, and even the more hopeful of the westermen seemed to believe that they could survive only if Renly acted foolishly. Robb could advise Renly not to act foolishly, since he had won lots of battles, and he would help Renly, she was sure; they were both fighting the Lannisters, and Renly had helped avenge Father, so they must be friends. Mother and Sansa and Robb would soon be back with Bran and Rickon in Winterfell. It seemed very likely now that the war was won.

And the price? For such a great achievement, small indeed. Merely that a servant girl named Weasel would never leave Harrenhal.

The castle was vast, but there were guards on the gates, and they were all bigger and stronger than Arya. The smallest one, more a door than a gate, had only one guard, a man called Jon of Hornvale. She had no chance on any of the others; she could not possibly kill multiple guards. One guard was a better choice, but still hopeless. Jon of Hornvale was too tall and too armoured, and Weasel had no position of authority over him; she would not be able to make him do something to make him vulnerable. She had had the power to kill him, and to be free… and she had thrown it away, so that her family could win their war.

Her only hope was that the Lannister garrison would leave Harrenhal, the strongest castle in the region, but the chance of that seemed vanishingly slim. If they stayed, King Renly would besiege them. Might be, Mother and Sansa and Robb would be there too, waiting a few miles away from her, mayhaps less, yet utterly out of reach. She had heard plenty of horrible tales from Old Nan. It seemed that the past was replete with stories of sieges where men in a castle or walled city were desperately lacking for food. And Arya knew Ser Amory did not care about his servants, except mayhaps that he would like to keep the girls he took into his chambers, and she was not old enough for that. She did not think she would be likely to get any food at all if the garrison had too little of it.

Arya resumed scrubbing the steps of the Widow's Tower with her red, raw hands. She wondered whether she would die there.


	4. Chapter 4

**SANSA**

There was a blast of trumpets, a sudden sound, loud and proud and martial. A herald cried in a young strong voice, "All hail His Grace Renly of the House Baratheon, the First of His Name, King of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm!"

Court rose from their seats in a rustle of cloth, in unison. Ser Cortnay Penrose, Ser Robar Royce and Lord Steffon Varner of the Rainbow Guard were first to stride into the Great Hall, cloaked in green, red and yellow. After them came the queen and king.

King Renly Baratheon looked better than he had in the first session of his court in King's Landing, a week past. When he walked, he no longer favoured his left side. Whatever wound he had received in the battle for the city must be healing well. He was smiling, a wide sunlike smile as if all in the world were lovely, yet she knew that told her nothing. On the day after the battle, she had seen him flinch with sudden pain when his leg was grasped as he dismounted, and he had still been smiling.

The king made his way to the Iron Throne, followed by the other four of his Rainbow Guard. He turned around from that monstrous mess of metal and sat down among the upward-pointing blades with careless grace, as if he had done it every day of his life. Court remained standing, silent, waiting.

"My friends, be seated," said the king.

And they were.

Sansa sat much closer to the Iron Throne than in her first session, a seat of honour, and she was clad in as fine a gown as any of the ladies of King Renly's court. She wore grey and white, Stark colours, quiet, subdued, but many of the others dazzled with red and blue and green and gold and purple. Next to this riot of colour, there was a whole host of ragged greys and browns, outnumbering the bright highborn: the common cityfolk, come to watch the king's decisions. There had never been nearly so many of them here in Joffrey's day.

The king smiled broadly at them all.

"I bring good tidings, my friends," he said. "Yesterday eve, a raven bore me word from my dear bride's lord father. He has humbly consented to serve me as my Hand, and even as we speak, he is riding to this city."

 _Bride's father? Queer choice of words._ It would be more common to say, simply, 'goodfather'. _Mayhaps he fears sounding too subordinate to Lord Tyrell…_

"I have not yet received word from Prince Doran," continued the king, "but that worries me not. Sunspear is further than Highgarden. Even if he were to reply as soon as he saw my message, his bird would not yet have reached us; and I'm told he is a cautious man, not prone to making choices hastily.

"Let us hope that he makes them wisely. I would be surprised if House Martell were to throw in its lot with the Lannister usurpers, given… their family history. It would seem that neither honour nor prudence would recommend that course. But if the Prince of Dorne thinks elsewise, my leal Lord of Stonehelm commands a great host of stormlanders at Blackhaven, well-placed to block the Boneway, and my even greater host at Highgarden lies not far from the Prince's Pass. Any assault upon the Dornish marches will be swiftly repelled. Invading through the Red Mountains is no easy task, and the advantage lies with the defender; but that sword cuts both ways. Prince Doran would be wise to consider this, should he like the notion of declaring for the bastard girl the Whore of the West placed in his custody, instead of sending her here to take holy orders in this city, as I required of him." He paused. "The Dornish have always liked their spices strong, but I fear the intensity of the flavour I've put in the marches may make even Dornish tongues burn."

 _Oh_ , thought Sansa, as court burst out laughing at the king's jape. She had wondered why Renly was saying this, for, unless some of the lords at his court were spies, these words could only be conveyed to Sunspear by ship, not raven, and by the time they arrived, Prince Doran would likely have already made his choice. But now she understood. This was not really a threat to Prince Doran. King Renly's words were not meant for the Prince of Dorne. The king's true purpose was to reassure the marcher lords among his own men that their lands were safe in their absence.

Soon King Renly resumed speaking. "I hope that Dorne will soon return to the king's peace. Sadly I cannot say the same of all the Seven Kingdoms. The bastard usurper Joffrey is likely alive on Dragonstone, and the rebel lord Tywin Lannister still has an army in the lands of the Trident. These traitors must be brought to heel. I have sent word to Lord Paxter Redwyne of the liberation of his sons. He is no longer prevented from aiding us with all the strength at his disposal. We'll know if he does not. The fleet of the Arbour will come to this city, and the Lumberjacks' Guild has my permission to fell trees in the kingswood, as I'm in need of a new royal fleet. I expect Dragonstone will be ours within a year, at most two. But the rebel army in the riverlands requires a more… a more _direct_ touch.

"Four-thousand men will remain to defend this city. Not too many traitors escaped to Dragonstone; I judge that number will suffice. They'll be under the command of the lord Hand upon his arrival, and he will join them with another two-thousand men. Till that day, my leal Lord of Sunhouse will lead them."

Branston Cuy, a broad-shouldered Reachlord of middle years, stood up and bowed before the king. His face held no surprise. "You honour me, Your Grace."

"I do," said the king. "Into your hands I entrust the heavy responsibility of protecting the people of King's Landing till your liegelord arrives. I'll depart, for I am king and the realm needs must be put to rights. Yet this city must not fall to the bastard usurper, should his host of traitors issue forth from Dragonstone." His voice rose. "A king's word must be kept, and I promised that my people will _never_ be tormented by the likes of Kevan Lannister _ever again_!"

" _Thanks be to the king_!" the smallfolk of King's Landing roared, and " _Hail the king_!" and " _Death to traitors_!" and " _Good King Renly_!" and a whole host of variations on those themes. There was no uniformity in their words, but their approval was clear and overpowering. Their clamour drowned out all other sound, and it seemed that King Renly Baratheon basked in the warmth of their regard, smiling and waving at them.

It seemed to go on for an age. Sansa did not know how long she sat there, listening to the cityfolk shower praise on their beloved king. She suspected it was as much a lesson to King Renly's followers as an expression of gratitude. The people loved _him_ , the king was telling his court, without needing to say it in words. Not the lords of the south, not his vassals, _him_. They were part of his strength, the key that had unlocked the capital of Westeros for him, and all would do well to remember that.

At last, as the cheers and chants were dying down somewhat, a handsome young man rose to speak to the king. Sansa recognised him from the first session of Renly's court as Ser Jon Osgrey, a knight sworn to the Rowans of Goldengrove. The king had promised him a keep of his own for exceptional courage and heroism in the Battle of King's Landing. "Your Grace!" he called. "Your Grace!"

King Renly heard him, and turned to him, bestowing upon him a smile bright as the sun. "My good ser?"

"The Lannisters have not the strength to require Your Grace's whole host in the riverlands, and the west is scarce defended," Ser Jon declared. "Robb Stark had not the strength to take Lannisport and lay siege to the Rock, but we _do_ have the strength, even when waging a campaign in the riverlands at the same time. If Lord Tywin defeats Lord Robb and escapes into his homeland, we will need to take the west. If we are to do that, better to do it not by the nigh-impassable mountains of the westerlands' border in the north, but by the southern way; and if we are to go that way, it is better that Your Grace send a host thither now, not march northward into the riverlands then have to go back south again, wasting precious time. The great knight Bittersteel proved it could be done, when he cut through those gentle rolling hills like a knife through cheese to invade the westerlands a hundred years ago. And are the knights of these days so greatly less valiant than he? Shall we see? Your Grace, we the men of the northmarch know the land well, and it's a campaign we have long awaited. All that you need do is give us the command, and we'll test our valour next to the valour of our ancestors; and, Warrior be willing, this time next year, Your Grace will feast in Lannisport!"

This aroused a great cry of approval, especially from other men of the Reach's northmarch, though, curiously, not from Mathis Rowan their overlord. " _Lannisport_!" they shouted. " _Lannisport_!"

Once this chant had died away, Lord Randyll Tarly rose to speak. The balding Lord of Horn Hill was one of Renly's closest advisers, according to the gossip of court, and it was said the king heeded his words on many military matters. Moreover, his loyalty to King Renly was ironclad. In a session of court a few days ago, the king had announced that House Caron's House law strictly forbade female-line succession, and the death of Lord Bryce Caron in the Battle of the Blackwater had ended his House in the trueborn male line, and, as such, the Lord of Nightsong's lands had reverted to the crown. The king had divided those lands into many pieces and parcelled them out to reward many other southern lords who served him, but the biggest and most prestigious piece, including the castle of Nightsong itself, was now a fief of House Tarly, as an especially great reward for the man whom King Renly had made especially great use of. Other noble Houses had been extinguished in the war, but none other as great as House Caron. Before his death Lord Bryce had been the second-mightiest of all the stormlords, surpassed in power and wealth by none except the Lord of Storm's End, Renly himself.

"Ser, that would be wise if the Lannisters were all we faced," Lord Randyll said. "They might be. They might not. If Lord Robb allies with Lord Tywin, we'll need to keep our strength for victory in the riverlands. Unless we sent more than twenty-thousand men into the westerlands, we'd still have roughly even odds—but why accept that, when we can have almost two to one? A gambler who accepts worse odds when he can have better is a gambler who soon finds himself without any gold. Better not take the risk. We must be prepared to fight the Starks and Lannisters at the same time, in case Lord Robb chooses to be our foe."

Appalled, Sansa felt she had to speak. "My lord, my brother would never fight beside the Lannisters."

Lord Randyll opened his mouth to reply. He did not. Instead she was answered by a voice that came from on high. "Your confidence in your brother's honour is laudable, my lady, but I fear it may be misplaced," said the king on the Iron Throne. "Regrettably, men are not made of such fine stuff as the Smith our maker. Men can be base and vile, and ambitious. If Lord Tywin offers your brother a crown, accepting the mutilation of the realm so as to preserve his own miserable life, and sending Joffrey to the Wall and elevating the equally bastard-born Tommen as a sop to Stark vengeance… might Lord Robb accept that offer? I don't think it impossible."

Sansa felt as if she were drowning, clutching for wood. _He's to march against Lord Tywin. He can't march against Robb, he cannot. I prayed for him to win._ "The Lannisters killed my lord father, Your Grace," she said. "I do not think my brother will forget that."

"Nor do I," said King Renly, to her surprise. "I don't expect Lord Robb to rebel against me. I've given him no cause to despise me, unlike the Lannisters, and your lord father was reputed to be an honourable man. And yet I am king. And because I am king, I cannot disregard such possibilities merely because I dislike them; I must be prepared to defend the realm, no matter what. If it transpires that your brother has more virtue than ambition, my terms to him will be fair. And if it transpires that his ambition is stronger than his virtue, I shall be ready to protect the realm."

The king continued to speak. He was no longer addressing her. His voice rose and filled the Great Hall of the Red Keep in all its vastness, seemingly effortlessly.

"In the time before Aegon the Conqueror, Westeros was a mess of endless warring between far too many kingdoms with nobody to keep them in line. Aegon ended that when he forged the Seven Kingdoms into one united realm. Since then, we have achieved so much together, built laws and roads and periods of continent-spanning peace that would have been unimaginable then. In that time, there was never a year that some or other part of our continent was not consumed in rivers of blood and fires of war. Even these dark treason-tainted days are a thousand times more blessed than those long accursed ages before Aegon came.

"I will not allow all of that work to be undone. I will not allow anyone—be he Lannister or Greyjoy or any other—to commit a deed of such unspeakable evil as to destroy everything that the folk of Westeros have worked for in three-hundred years, returning us to an era of endless hate.

"I am king now, descendant of Aegon the Conqueror. I am now Protector of the Realm. And as long as I draw breath, I will never, ever allow the realm to be torn asunder."

Lord Randyll stood, drawing his greatsword. "Long live the king!"

Then Lord Staedmon. "Long live the king!"

Ser Donnel Swann, next. "Long live the king!"

And another, and another, and another… the knights and lords of the south stood, baring steel, arrayed before King Renly, endless male voices of every type and timbre melding into one, shouting those same words of acclamation:

" _Long live the king_! _Long live the king_!"

It was an evening three days later that Sansa stood at a window high in the Red Keep, overlooking the army outside the city walls. Many had been living in the great barracks that used to be the Dragonpit. That had ended now. Only those men who were to stay under Lord Cuy's command were still sleeping in the city. The men who were going to march were in their companies, outside. They were nearly ready to leave. She would be leaving with King Renly's host, and King Renly's host would march tomorrow.

Men chattered and dined at their campfires. Their voices were audible even from here, though she could not make out any of the words that they were saying.

She tried to count the campfires once. She got to half a hundred before she gave up. She could not tell which ones she had already counted and which ones she had not, but that was not what made her give up. What made her give up was that she could not reach the end, for they were no longer distinguishable. The faraway fires merged into each other like a continuous line of light at the horizon and doubtless beyond, as uncountable and as unstoppable as sunrise.

A shiver ran through her. She could not look at them any more. Sansa turned away, and headed down to the Red Keep's godswood.

The godswood was quiet, and the wind played in her hair. She let it. She was thinking of the Lannisters, with all their cruelty and cunning, all their tricks like their impossibly large amounts of wildfire, and the betrayal of the Florents, and how they had somehow won the allegiance of the royal fleet and then concealed it… with all the cleverness of their leaders and all the courage of their men… with the high walls of King's Landing, specifically _King's Landing_ , which forced Renly to play into their hands and attack despite all the disadvantages of attacking, because it was the capital, the only city that contained the throne he was fighting the war to gain, the only all-important target that he could never ignore, for, in the eyes of many in Westeros, the man who held King's Landing was the king.

They had gone against that line of light on the horizon. None of it had been enough.

All of that… Did Robb have so much more?

Sansa shivered again, though it was not too cold. She knelt before the great oak that was the heart-tree, and she entreated the old gods, the gods of the north, of Robb, of her lord father.

 _Keep my brother safe_ , she begged them voicelessly, not daring to speak aloud. _Renly Baratheon may not be the man he wants the world to think he is. He may be a monster. But they're all monsters, and this monster is the strongest of them, and this monster has no grudge against our family. Yet._

 _Old gods, gods of my father… grant Robb the power to win whichever battles he must win, and the wisdom to know which battles not to fight. Let the Lannisters alone be up against that line of light on the horizon. Let Robb be free of it. Let him accept the bargain Renly offers him. Let him, let_ all _of us return to Winterfell. Let us never go south again._

 _I've already lost two brothers, surely for any god that's cruelty enough. Please don't make me lose three._


	5. Chapter 5

**CATELYN**

A chill wind blew from the northwest. Catelyn felt it bite despite her clothes and dig its icy teeth into her skin. The walls of Riverrun behind her did not shield her from it. She stood nonetheless in one of her finest gowns, far from the warmest, and the men arrayed behind her had had their armour polished till it glinted. They all stood rigidly at attention, their eyes fixed westward.

The standards on the riverroad drew closer, snapping in the wind, too unsteady to see anything but the colours. Something that seemed dark on a field of red, doubtless the giant of Umber; white on greenish blue, for House Manderly; silver on red for the Glovers; white on black for the Karstarks; the brown on orange of Hornwood; the black on green of Mormont; many more; and, manifold, flying higher than the others, everywhere the grey on white of Stark.

Facing that forest, above the men at Riverrun flew only the silver trout standards of Tully, and they were not many. As far as delegations went, this one was skeletal. Catelyn had with her Ser Robin Ryger the captain of guards, Ser Desmond Grell the master-at-arms and Utherydes Wayn the steward of Riverrun, all of them elderly men long in her lord father's service. Here were no lords bannermen or great knights of the Trident. Many had not been in Riverrun at all, and those who had been had ridden away to war. Her brother Edmure had stripped Riverrun bare, leaving behind three-hundred men-at-arms: more than sufficient for the task of holding the castle, but not for aught else.

Riding up to them were the lords and masters of the northern host. Rickard Karstark, Lady Maege Mormont, Galbart Glover, the Greatjon… they surveyed the delegation waiting outside Riverrun with cold eyes. Behind them, their lowborn men, less accustomed to social graces, were grumbling and muttering to each other aloud. The northmen knew, clearly, of Edmure's march, and they were not best pleased.

There were rivermen among them, though not many. When Robb had granted the riverlords leave to protect or reclaim their own lands after the Battle of the Camps, most of them had dispersed. Only her uncle Brynden had stayed with Robb, him and the Freys of the Crossing, the most powerful of House Tully's vassals, who had contributed a thousand men ahorse to Robb's host, as well as near three-thousand foot that Robb had placed under Lord Bolton. And yet the trout of Tully was the only standard of the riverlands that fluttered above the army riding on the riverroad. The blue bridge banner of Frey was nowhere to be seen.

Catelyn's eyes noted all of this in passing. There was only one whom they sought. When she saw him she at first did not perceive it, for the one she was looking for was not this thin-faced northern lord, a man taller than her, with a mane of auburn hair down to his shoulders. It took her a moment ere she knew.

"Your Grace." She curtsied to her son. "It is pleasing to see you well."

Catelyn took care to maintain her composure. Robb was the only child she had remaining to her, she who had had five, for her others were dead or captive, and she and he had been apart for many turns of the moon. She had been afraid indeed when she had heard Robb had been wounded in the westerlands. Yet she could not allow the King in the North to appear weak before his bannermen by the sight of his mother's concern.

"I was well cared for, Mother."

Robb looked apprehensive. There was a pretty woman riding at his side. Catelyn knew who the woman was, and her son knew she knew, for he had sent the raven to Riverrun to tell her. Nevertheless, certain formalities had to be observed.

He said, "Permit me to present to you my lady wife, the Lady Jeyne, of the Crag, elder daughter of Lord Gawen Westerling."

Catelyn curtsied and smiled. She greeted Jeyne Westerling as "Daughter" in a voice that sounded convincingly sincere.

The westerwoman smiled, and said, "My lady mother," and Robb's shoulders relaxed with relief. Catelyn wondered what her son had expected of her. Had he truly thought her tactless enough that she might make a fuss of it? However displeased she was by his choice, she would not be such a fool. Unless all went awry, she would have to live with this woman for years.

"Your Graces, my lords," Catelyn said, "be welcome to Riverrun, and rest from the toil of the road by my lord father's hearth." She beckoned behind her, and a servant boy came running, bearing a platter of bread and salt.

Robb swung down from his horse in the smooth easy motion of a man accustomed to the saddle. His wife and his bannermen followed suit. Catelyn turned; the men of Riverrun gave way before her, allowing her and her son to pass and to be first of all to cross the drawbridge that spanned the great moat of Riverrun. In times of threat, the moat could be filled, and then it and the rivers Red Fork and Tumblestone would render the castle like an island, nigh impossible to besiege. Now, however, the sluice gates were closed. The Lannisters had not dared to come close to Riverrun since the first two of Robb's great victories.

Catelyn and her son parted swiftly from the others and came to her lord father's solar. Jeyne Westerling and a cluster of other strangers came with them. There was an older woman who greatly resembled Jeyne and a little girl of an age with Sansa, probably a mother and a younger sister of Robb's bride. There were also a boy, a young man, and an older man with a resemblance. Catelyn might have thought them brothers and a father to her son's bride, if not for the fact that she knew Lord Gawen Westerling had been held captive by House Mallister ever since he fought _against_ House Stark in the Battle in the Whispering Wood.

Robb introduced them each in turn. The older man, it transpired, was a maternal uncle, Ser Rolph Spicer. Fortunately, once this was done, the mother had the sense to ask to be excused and to be found chambers in Riverrun to rest in, allowing Catelyn and her son to speak privily.

She had been furious when she first heard the news. She was calmer now; she had had plenty of time to cool, and she doubted her son would react well to open wrath. Too often, men would respond to reproach by shouting reflexively to defend their deeds, no matter what those deeds were, or by retreating into themselves, and either way they would refuse to heed whatever was said, no matter the sense in it. There was more sadness than anger in her voice when she asked him, "How many swords does your new bride bring with her?"

"Sixty, a dozen of them mounted. But Jeyne is a good woman, Mother, as kind and clever as she is lovely. She will be a good wife."

His tone was defensive. Perhaps hers had still been too sharp. She softened it further. "I don't doubt that, Robb. May I ask how this happened?"

"I already told you a wound festered when I took the Crag, and Jeyne nursed me back to health. You see… it was Bran and Rickon. When I heard… you know." He choked on the words. "She… she… she was kind to me, Mother. And so I wed her. I couldn't not. I wouldn't leave her with a bastard in her belly."

 _Like Father did._ The words, unspoken, nonetheless rested heavy between them in the air.

Catelyn kept her voice gentle, allowing no trace of her anger to inflect it. Her son did not need that from her now. She did not tell him he had made a poor choice, though he surely had; it would offend him, and the marriage could not be undone, so it would serve no purpose. Nor did she tell him how much greater the Freys' strength which he had lost was than the Westerlings' strength which he had gained. Surely he knew that and his thoughts had dwelt on it already. All that she said was a soft "I see."

"I thought you would be angry." Robb's tone was wondering. "I doubt you agree… Why are you not?"

"I was," Catelyn admitted, "but yours is not the only raven I received. There was another, more recent. It doesn't surprise me that the scouts around Riverrun who first saw your host approaching didn't know of it; it arrived only the day before yesterday. Maester Vyman assures me that the bird came from King's Landing. It bore this."

She pushed a letter from her side of the table to Robb's, and he looked down at it. Its wax seal was broken, but the shape was still plain to see: simply the crowned stag of Baratheon, standing on its hind legs high and proud, without any rampant lion opposing it.

Robb spent a moment staring at the seal, then he pounded both fists on the table. " _Yes_!"

Catelyn was unsmiling.

"Why are you grim?" her son demanded of her. His eyes were bright with excitement. "This is excellent news. We may yet make peace with Lord Renly, by the offer he gave you. The true enemy is the Lannisters. Of them, Joffrey and the queen are likely dead, or will be soon enough. Ser Kevan and the Imp too. Only Lord Tywin remains in the field. These are the best tidings I've heard from afar at any time in this whole godsdamned war."

Catelyn said, "Look within."

He did. She watched him open the letter she had read half a hundred times. She knew its words almost by heart. She watched him as he read: the initial haughty proclamation; the description of the battle; the disappearance of Joffrey and the Imp, likely to Dragonstone, with a mere remnant of Lannister strength, soon to be crushed; the impending execution of Queen Cersei (she saw Robb's smile widen at that); and…

Robb swore loudly.

"Yes," said Catelyn. Her voice trembled. It was hard to say the name. All she could say was, "I have only two children now."

"Could he be lying?" Robb looked up from the letter, up at her. "Not that Arya's alive. I'm not a fool. He wouldn't say Sansa was his only hostage from our family if he had Arya too; there'd be no sense in that. But mayhaps it wasn't the Lannisters who killed her. He says they never had Arya in the first place… but what if she didn't die when they took the city and imprisoned Father? What if she died in the Battle of King's Landing, in the chaos when Lord Renly took the city?"

"Possibly," Catelyn conceded, "but I think not. If that were so, this letter would be too easily shown to be a lie. There's no reason the queen would have kept the girls utterly isolated from one another, if she truly had them both. They would have seen each other in Lannister custody at least once, and as soon as we spoke to Sansa we would know that Lord Renly was lying, and, hence, that his men slew your sister. If he truly were to blame, it would be more sensible for him to use a different lie, half true: that she was indeed slain in the battle, but by House Lannister's men, not his. The westermen would be dead and his men wouldn't tell, so we would never know, one way or the other. The truth would go with him to the grave. _This_ lie, if it be a lie, is too easily exposed for good use. And also, I spoke… ere your return I spoke with Ser Cleos Frey, who told me that he saw Sansa at court but had no word of… he had no word of… he had not seen…" She could not say it. "Truth be told, I suspected it even then, but I hoped… foolishly I dared to hope… well, I was wrong. So no, kinslayer though Lord Renly is, I do not think he lies in this."

"Damn it." Robb was shaking. "Gods _damn_ it. And gods damn the queen, too, may the Others take her soul once Renly takes her head. She was lying to us all along. When she proclaimed her terms from the Iron Throne, the terms you told me of by raven, she meant all along to pay us with false coin. She caused my sister's death, then sought to buy back her wicked brother with a hostage she never even had."

"Are you surprised?" Catelyn asked her son. "Her name is Cersei Lannister. She murdered my Ned and likely her own husband too, and lay with her own brother. Of other Lannisters, perhaps, there may be some in that House who may keep their word, who could give terms and be trustworthy to hold to them… but I'd sooner trust a pit viper than a woman such as her."

"I shouldn't have been," said Robb, "but I was. Well, the bite of a headsman's sword will end the matter soon enough. Good riddance."

"Good riddance indeed," Catelyn said, thinking of the daughter she would never see again. _I should never have let you go to King's Landing. My little girl… Arya, forgive me._

"Still, surely you don't believe that nonsense about her and the Kingslayer? It's transparently self-serving. Lord Stannis has no proof, and never made mention of it while King Robert lived. It's naught but a figleaf over his naked ambition for the crown."

"If it were only for power, why did the queen poison Lord Arryn when she did, and not a decade earlier to get her lord father in the position? And why kill Ned, instead of sending him to take the black or even letting him go back home, in return for you ceasing to go to war against them? That choice made them have to fight against you and Lord Renly at once, a war they would surely have been better-served to avoid. And why try to kill Bran, twice? What could that deed possibly gain them? You may recall, your father and the king were hunting on the day Bran fell from the broken tower, but the queen and the Kingslayer stayed in Winterfell. He's a good climber, he never fell before—until he saw something he shouldn't have seen. Why commit all of those enormities, if not that all three discovered a truth the queen could not allow to escape?"

"Good gods." Robb looked ill. "Good _gods_. You think the Kingslayer pushed Bran because he'd seen him fucking the queen?"

"I'd stake my life on it," she said.

Robb's hand closed tight, too tight. She saw her son's nails digging into his skin. "They'll pay for that. I swear it."

"The Lannisters cannot be our first concern," Catelyn warned. "They are nearly defeated. Lord Tywin commands the only host of theirs that remains, and Lord Renly will undoubtedly destroy him. Our first concern must be the ironmen, who are by no means defeated. As long as the traitor who murdered both your brothers sits in Winterfell and you leave him unmolested, you are no king, not even a lord. Theon Greyjoy needs killing."

"Not yet. The Greyjoys have too much strength at Moat Cailin," said Robb. "I need an army to displace them. Only three and a half thousand men rode into Riverrun behind me—men ahorse, I grant you, but that does not suffice. To win back the Moat, I need the men your brother is leading in the wrong direction."

Catelyn winced.

"What was he _thinking_?" Robb demanded. "Was he thinking at all? This business of riding out against Lord Tywin… What in the name of the gods old and new possessed him?"

"He had many reasons, not all of them wise," Catelyn said wearily. "I counselled him against it, but he made his mind despite my counsel, and I had not the power to gainsay him. Principally, I believe, he thought you should have come east, and meant to force your hand. He thinks it was folly to stay in the west once it became clear that Lord Tywin would not go."

"There was folly, yes," said her kingly son, "but not mine. Does he think it mere _coincidence_ that Lord Tywin remained in his position? If I hadn't remained in the west, Lord Tywin would have rushed south at once and prevented the fall of King's Landing."

"Why?"

"If Lord Tywin were to reinforce the capital, thus leaving the siege that he has laid against Robett Glover's men, that would free them to join with your brother's host," Robb said briskly. "If Lord Tywin were then to lose the Battle of King's Landing, well, that would be the end for him. And even if he were to win, grinding down the near limitless numbers of Lord Renly's southerners against the high city walls, this combined host of Glover's northmen and the men of the Trident would be more than strong enough to hold the Red Fork and keep Lord Tywin out of the westerlands, while I would remain ravaging his lands. He couldn't defeat such a host unless he gained a great deal more men, some grand new host of allies from the south. And where could he possibly get them? Nowhere. Dorne is too far away, the ironmen have no great strength to spare from their campaign against the north, and the power of Highgarden and Storm's End belongs to Lord Renly. That strategy might win him Joffrey's throne, but it wouldn't protect the westerlands. And the westerlords are no fools; they _knew_ that. Lord Tywin has two purposes that matter to him near equally: keeping his grandson on the Iron Throne and protecting the westerlands. But to his bannermen the second purpose matters more, by far, than the first. They need to protect their lands. They care much less about achieving a dynastic victory for their liege."

"So you say Lord Tywin _couldn't_ march to defend the capital," Catelyn said, pondering it, "else the westerlords would turn against him."

"Yes. To keep the westerlords loyal to him, Lord Tywin had to pursue some stratagem to remove my host from the westerlands: either march against me and thus play into my hands, or attempt to lure me out by raiding the riverlands. So that is what he did. He could send parts of his strength to the capital in drips and drabs—first his brother Ser Kevan, then Leo Lefford the Lord of the Golden Tooth—but not enough of it to stop the triumph of the southerners. He had to keep the greater part of his host in a position where they were not abandoning the west. Not all went exactly as I pleased, but my plan worked well enough. I would have preferred him to march west. I had a trap planned for him there, a place where the ground was greatly in our favour, where I could lure him to his doom. But for him to stay in the riverlands, _out_ of King's Landing, was an acceptable second choice. If I left the westerlands, the Lannisters would have won the Battle of King's Landing. Doing as I did kept the main strength of House Lannister hundreds of miles from the place it desperately needed to be."

"It worked," said Catelyn. "House Lannister has fallen."

"It _would_ have worked," Robb corrected, in a voice thick with frustration, "if not for your brother. The Lannisters have suffered a devastating blow, yes. That part of it went according to plan. But I hoped that after the southerners took King's Landing I'd be able to let them fight Lord Tywin, crushing him and weakening them, while I went to throw the ironmen from the Moat. Then the north and south would be able to forge an accord against the iron islands over the ashes of the west. That can't be done now. He has committed himself to fighting the westermen, and thus myself too, for I can't afford to let his army be lost; and if I am to acquire Glover's men or his to fight the Greyjoys, I must defeat the westermen first. My uncle's folly has turned the plan backwards. It's _us_ who will be weakened against the Lannisters now, not King Renly's host of southerners."

Catelyn closed her eyes. _Oh Brother, you should have trusted your king._ It sounded like a good plan. It sounded like it would have worked. It nearly had done.

"And you cannot use the southerners to fight the ironmen," she said, "because of the conditions of the peace."

"Yes. If we treat with the king on the Iron Throne _now_ , as a battered beaten people who claim two of the Seven Kingdoms but have enemy hosts—westermen and ironmen—occupying large parts of both of them, as feeble petitioners begging for his help to save us…" Robb trailed off. "With the Vale we would not be. The Vale, the Trident and the north together could stand against anyone in Westeros, even Renly. I've sent raven after raven to your sister. Tell me, Mother, surely _one_ of them has found her?"

His voice was plaintive. He wanted reassurance. Instead she gave him truth. "I expect they have. Lysa never had much courage, Robb. Even when we were girls, if ever she made our lord father upset she would run away and hide, as though he'd forget to be angry with her. She's doing the same thing now. She won't lift a finger to help anyone; she's ignoring the war and hoping it will go away."

Robb absorbed that with a scowl. "From her inaction I expected little, but I hoped… Well, it matters naught. Without the Vale, if we seek terms from King Renly now, we will be at his mercy. Unbearably high taxes to fund the rebuilding of the rest of the realm and pay off the crown's debts, greater royal interference in northern affairs, hostages to ensure our obedience, mayhaps even his choice of lords for northern castles to replace lines ended by the war, filling the north with his own cronies… he'll have whichever terms he chooses. We and the Lannisters have lost too many men. Even if somehow the Lannisters fought on our side, it would _still_ be madness to fight King Renly's armies on an open field. Might be his offer will be generous, but I doubt it. I don't think highly of a kinslayer. In that case, if his terms are harsh, my lords bannermen will despise them and despise me for agreeing to them when I have to, and resentment and fermenting revolt will cripple House Stark for generations. That can't be allowed. But if we treat with him later, after throwing the ironmen out of the north, as a powerful sovereign people who can choose to defy him from behind the Moat, forcing the southerners to throw themselves in vain against the barrier that's stopped every invader for thousands of years, then King Renly will have to treat us with respect corresponding to our strength. So in that case, if Renly offers terms that are fair and reasonable, and can be accepted, I'll bend the knee, and if he offers terms that cannot be accepted… if his proposed terms are ruinous to the north, I'll have the option to recognise that. My name will be cursed in the north for generations if I treat with him as the 'King Who Lost the North'." He said it with disgust. "I must treat with him instead as the King in the North, victorious."

"You say much of the north," said Catelyn cautiously. "What of the Trident?" _What of my lord father's people?_

Robb sighed. "If my uncle had stayed in Riverrun, we'd crush the ironmen and the southerners would defeat the westermen. The southerners would lose men in the process and they'd have a weaker hand to play against us, and there would be good terms for both the north _and_ the lands of the Trident֫—mayhaps full independence and not bending the knee at all, if the southerners were weakened enough. But now? I have to march many miles eastward to the Trident to defeat the westermen first, then embark on another long march northward, then retake the Moat. By the time I've done all that, most of the lands of the Trident will have been overrun by King Renly's hosts, and my hosts will have suffered attrition while his power is undiminished. Under those circumstances I can't help the riverlords; they'll have no choice but to submit to him. They'll bend the knee soon, no matter what I do. If my uncle accepts that, he'll survive; if he doesn't, the Baratheons will destroy him. I can't stop that. All I can do is do the best I can for the north."

Catelyn thought on what her son had said, and on what he had left unsaid. "So all of us are leaving Riverrun."

"Yes," said Robb. "I'm sorry, Mother, I know you have a love for this place and you were born here, but we cannot stay. This castle will belong to Renly in half a year or less. You, and I, and Jeyne, and all the men and women of the north will be leaving the riverlands. The war is drawing to a close; its deciding blow was struck four days ago. The Lannisters must be beaten, then the Greyjoys, and then… and then we're going to Winterfell, Mother. We're going home."


	6. Chapter 6

**TYRION**

The sheer surprise struck like a fist to the stomach. On the deck of the ship, Tyrion almost stumbled. "How… how did this come to be?"

The other guards were shuffling backward, retreating behind the one whom they had forced to be their spokesman. The dark-haired man with the Lannisport accent had no choice but to reply. "'Twere four days past, m'lord. He fell off 'is horse what spotted some apples in a barrel. Lord Tywin, 'e was mountin', you see, his neck broke soon as 'e hit the ground."

 _A Lord of Casterly Rock killed for a barrel of apples. What would Father would think of that?_ Tyrion felt the hysterical laughter bubbling in the back of his throat and ruthlessly suppressed it. This was a catastrophe. He had to remain, and appear, utterly in control.

"Who commands now?"

"Er," said the Lannisportsman. All of a sudden, his feet seemed to become spectacularly interesting.

"I see," said Tyrion. His thoughts were racing. He had to… somebody must… but how?…

The other guards were nudging their comrade in arms, whispering. The luckless fellow looked up at Tyrion on the deck, cleared his throat and said, "There's more, m'lord."

"What more?" From the man's expression, Tyrion gathered that it could be nothing good. He looked like he would rather go straight to the seven hells than continue talking.

"It's the prince, m'lord," the guard said. "He vanished, same day as Lord Tywin fell. No-one knows nothin' where 'e's gone."

 _Dead in a ditch, no doubt._ Any trace of humour in the situation flew out swift as wind. _The same day? Traitor, you could have at least_ tried _to be subtle._

"Understood," Tyrion said, suddenly very aware of his own mortality. He wished for his mountain clansmen or for Bronn, but of course they all were lost in King's Landing, many miles of voyaging behind him. _The world is gone mad_ , he thought, _when the rightful Lord of Casterly Rock is in the midst of his own bannermen and would sooner be with wildlings or sellswords to find men whom he can trust._ "I don't suppose you have any more tidings to bring me? This has been _such_ a warm welcome."

The Lannisportsman was trembling. "No, m'lord."

"Well, that's something at least." He turned around and called, "Captain Meryn! Have a boat prepared for us to disembark. Do not leave yet; I'll require your services to send a message to Lady Selyse."

This was done. For the first time since the Battle of King's Landing, Tyrion Lannister set foot on mainland Westeros.

It was hardly the most glorious of homecomings. With his stunted legs and missing right forearm, he had to get one of the dozen taller westermen escorting him to pick him up and lift him out of the boat, else he would have got his clothes too wet and made himself a laughing stock before the lords of the west. His welcoming party consisted of two-dozen lowborn guards and some other soldiers watching idly nearby. There were rather fewer of those soldiers than there had been. Doubtless they hoped to be rewarded for swiftly informing his late lord father's bannermen of the return of their liege's son.

"You," Tyrion said, pointing at a group of men-at-arms sitting together, "I want representatives of each House sworn to the Rock to come to my lord father's tent. They are summoned. They can answer that summons with alacrity or be excluded; the choice is theirs; be sure to tell them that. We will begin in an hour."

He heard grumbling—"We're no messenger boys, we're soldiers, men grown. Fucking Imp, that ain't fitting. This ain't no task for the likes of us."—but only quietly. He was a Lannister, they all knew that, and he spoke with a voice that sounded like he knew he was going to be obeyed. He was obeyed.

Word of Tyrion Onearm's arrival would spread quickly, he knew. His own commands had to follow hot on its heels. He dared not allow his father's bannermen time to gather and ponder their options together, united in interests opposed to his own. _I must strike while the iron is hot._ He had no time to waste, especially not by waiting for messengers to soothe the pride of some of his father's guardsmen.

"You—" Tyrion pointed at another group— "will escort me there. So will you, you and you. Now let us be off."

The soldiers he gathered were not much of an honour guard, merely about a hundred men who happened to have been near the downstream edge of the camp. He discreetly perused them as they walked, but other than their accents and the badges over their hearts he knew nothing of their origins or names and nothing of their loyalties. For all he knew, some of them might have played a role in the murder of his lord father. He wished fervently that Lady Selyse had not forced him to relinquish his hold on the survivors he had led out of the Battle of King's Landing, men who had served him and his uncle in battle and were at least somewhat accustomed to obeying him, to her mad scheme against the Lord of the Arbour, but what else could he have done? Unless he wanted his dwarfish head to be delivered to Renly on a silver platter he could hardly have denied her.

Still, he dared not go unescorted. Without his own men, these would have to do.

They walked onward, a hundred taller men tightly surrounding Tyrion, bristling with spears. He was going through the great host of the westerlands, more than ten-thousand men of whom he hoped to soon be in command, and yet he could scarcely see them. All that he could see were the clothes and mail of his guards.

They had lost one Lord of Casterly Rock recently, he supposed. It would look like carelessness to lose another.

His guards spread out around him, letting him see again, at a tent which Tyrion recognised at once as his lord father's. He had seen it before, and nobody else would have owned such a thing. It was a pavilion the size of a small house, a great expanse of cloth-of-gold. Some called it a symbol of the nobility and power of House Lannister. Tyrion himself had always thought it rather gaudy.

He saw men-at-arms waiting around his lord father's tent. Not all of them wore the sigil of his lord father.

"Let us enter," said Tyrion, gesturing to some of his guards to go first. Of all possible ways to die, it would be rather foolish to get himself killed by an assassin waiting in a tent which mayhaps nobody had stepped in since Lord Tywin died. A dozen of his men came in before Tyrion himself entered.

They were not alone.

"Greetings, Lord Richard, Lord Ilyn, Lord Damon, Ser Ormund." Tyrion gave them a bow, keeping his voice light. "You are early."

"Greetings, my lord of Lannister." Their mode of address was careful, chosen to be courteous without affirming or even implying recognition of overlordship.

"It is important to be punctual." Damon Marbrand, Lord of Ashemark and a cousin of his lord father's, surveyed him with cool blue eyes. "I confess, I did think you were dead."

"The southerners will be dreadfully disappointed to hear otherwise," Tyrion said brightly. "They did try—" he brandished his stump, affecting nonchalance— "but they couldn't find my neck."

"Is the king here?" asked Lord Ilyn Algood.

"His Grace the King is safe on Dragonstone," said Tyrion, "where I took him from the battle. Given my uncle's unfortunate fate, His Grace has named me Lord Regent to act in his stead."

"I see," said Lord Ilyn. But before he or any of the others could speak again, the outermost tent-flap opened, and they heard a man taking off his boots in the outer part.

"Why, Ser Terrence," Tyrion said with a smile, "please do come in. The comfort of my pavilion awaits you. And Lord Willem too? A pleasure."

As a trickle turning to a flood, the lords and highborn knights of the westerlands poured in. All of them fit in without a problem. This pavilion was so vast that if they were pressed together it could have held well over a hundred men. Tyrion welcomed all of his father's sworn men with courtesy, acting as a host, as if it were indisputable and undisputed that of course this tent was his. Some gave him condolences for his lord father's death, and he acted the part of the dutiful son, bearing the burden that fell to him but mourning and deeply upset at his bereavement.

Then spoke Lord Richard Serrett of Silverhill, one of the mightiest lords in the westerlands, and his clear cold voice cut through the babble like a knife. "It has been an hour or thereabouts since my lord of Lannister arrived, by my reckoning," he said. "Now mayhaps we are to learn for what cause we were summoned so brusquely."

The westerlords fell silent, gazing at the dwarf who all of them knew had been his father's shame.

Tyrion dared not be too apologetic. He resolved upon audacity. "Very well. The cause is this: I propose that you bend the knee to the rightful Lord of Casterly Rock and swear me your fealty."

The sheer boldness of this opening suggestion took his father's bannermen aback. There were a few moments of silence before Lord Richard said, "And why in the Father's name should we do that?"

Tyrion affected obliviousness. "The law of succession," he said. "My late lord father had two sons. One of them is Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. That makes the matter quite clear, I should think."

"Kingsguard oaths can be broken," said Ser Harrold Moreland, "as your lord brother himself has shown. Or would you condemn him for that?"

"Mad King Aerys deserved to die," Tyrion said, not allowing himself to be snared in the trap of appearing as a traitor to his own family. "That doesn't mean that all honour of pledges and oaths are worthless, else King Robert, who agreed my brother's deed was not evil, would have dissolved the order of the Kingsguard. And besides…" He aimed the barb, and flung it. _I am sorry, Jaime, but the west needs a lord here and now, not a lord in a faraway dungeon._ "Which would you rather have as your lord: the man who made the Battle of the Blackwater, or the man who made the battles at Riverrun?"

The westerlords exchanged looks. The Battle in the Whispering Wood and the Battle of the Camps, between them, had resulted in thousands more westermen dead or imprisoned than even the Battle of King's Landing. That was not a happy memory.

Jaime's old friend Ser Addam Marbrand sprang to his defence. Ser Addam said hotly, "You lost the battle that mattered. You lost King's Landing, despite the Battle of the Blackwater."

"The Battle of King's Landing was a defeat," Tyrion agreed, "but that was because the City Watch mutinied mid-battle and opened the River Gate. I saw it with my own eyes. That ruined a perfectly good defence which Renly showed no sign of breaking. Tell me, do you think the noble lords of the west to be as worthless as the gutter-born shit of the capital?"

He felt his calculated insult strike. Ser Addam fumed but he did not retort. None of the westerlords did. That rhetorical question was not one to which they could answer, "Yes."

Ser Jaime Peckledon spoke next, a young man with a missing leg. His voice was soft. "There are other choices than you and your brother, my lord of Lannister." He was careful not to address Tyrion as 'Lord Lannister', or even the less explicit 'my lord', which could sometimes, though sometimes not, imply a bannerman speaking to his liege. "You have cousins on your father's side and on your mother's, many male and bearing the Lannister name. Lancel, Martyn, Willem, Tyrek, Daven, Damion… any one of them could be our lord, and they do not share your… your condition. They could lead us."

"I do," said Tyrion, "but they cannot lead us. There's no time to waste; two separate armies are marching upon us; and my cousins are not _here_."

Nobody disputed that.

"Tell me, then," said the crippled knight, "if you are to lead us, whither shall it be?"

"Homeward," declared Tyrion, and he heard a low murmur among his father's men. "We must withdraw the raiders from the riverlands. We dare not stay here any longer; the usurper's strength in the field is too great. The remnants of Lord Bolton's defeated army have spent more than four turns of the moon trapped in holdfasts under a siege they didn't expect or prepare for. Starvation will have done most of our work for us. We reduce those holdfasts one by one—we cannot leave Bolton at our rear—then we march to meet Edmure Tully on the riverroad, or Robb Stark, for doubtless he's already on his way to join his host to his uncle's. Make a peace if Lord Stark will accept that, even acknowledging his crown, for we must conserve our strength as best we can to fight Lord Renly. Crush him if he won't. Then we'll be back in the westerlands, well ahead of the usurper's host, ready to face the southerners from behind our own walls in our own land."

There was another rumble of muttering. Whether it was in agreement or derision, Tyrion could not tell.

"You would give up the riverlands?" said Lord Willem Falwell. "After all we have sacrificed here?"

"We cannot _keep_ the riverlands," said Tyrion. "Fight here, and we'll lose, caught between the northmen and the southerners. We stand some chance against either alone. We can't fight both at once. We would simply die, and what good would that do to our lost kin? What honour would it do their sacrifice? And I am not the Lord of Riverrun, but of Casterly Rock. I'd give up the riverlands to save the westerlands a dozen times in a heartbeat."

Tyrion watched his father's bannermen as he spoke. Some of them seemed in agreement, especially with that last sentiment. Others seemed offended and angered.

"We _can_ fight both, and we must," urged Ser Tommen Foote. "King Robert won his crown at the Trident. We can secure it for his son. Crush the northmen first, I agree, but then we shouldn't run away from the usurper with our tails between our legs just because of one lost battle. Fortify the river, burn the bridges, cover the fords with stakes and crow's-feet and put a company at each one, and let Lord Renly come. He can't forfeit the northern riverlands. He'll have to fight us, trying to cross a defended river. He'll fail."

"He won't try," said Tyrion. "He'll leave an army strong enough to hold us off, then take most of his strength and ravage the westerlands. He'll burn our homes, steal our gold and have our women raped till we can't bear it any more and come running to fight him on his terms—a battle we cannot win."

"Burn the northern riverlands badly enough and he'll have no choice but to come to us," Ser Tommen said.

"That's not so. The usurper's men are largely from the stormlands and the Reach. What do they care if the riverlands are aflame? The southerners won't care half as much about the riverlands as we westermen care about the west."

Then the Lord of Ashemark spoke, throwing an accusation harsher than any other so far. "It seems to me," said Damon Marbrand, "that you mean to be Lord of Casterly Rock but not your other claimed title, Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms. It seems to me you wish to throw away most of His Grace's realm."

Tyrion bristled. "I saved His Grace's life. I got this—" he held out the stump of his right arm— "because I waited to save others from that disaster, rather than simply fleeing myself. If I meant to abandon my nephew, I would have left him in King's Landing. This is the best way of preventing the _entire_ fall of His Grace's realm. And let me remind you, Lord Damon, that it isn't I who has allowed a prince of royal blood to be murdered."

"How dare you!" cried Lord Damon, outraged, but Tyrion ignored him, because—

"Your nephew wasn't murdered, my lord," interjected Lord Petyr Broom. "No body was found. He was abducted. A naked serving man was found with a bad injury to the head. Maester Tothmure is trying, but doesn't expect he'll ever wake again. And one of House Hawthorne's messenger boys was threatened to give up his clothes by a big man dressed as a servant. Prince Tommen made his way back to his tent after Lord Tywin's death, we know that, for his and his Kingsguard's armour were left there. They must have not known about any threat; they were come upon unarmoured, and taken."

"Then doubtless he's either dead in a ditch right now or being taken to Renly and will shortly become so," said Tyrion harshly. "It changes nothing. No man here can accuse _me_ of neglecting His Grace. When I had a son of the king to keep safe, I kept him safe."

The westerlords fell silent at that. It was not a friendly silence. Tyrion cursed his own wounded pride. That had been ill-spoken; it had won him no friends.

"Nobody means to impugn your honour, Lord Petyr, nor Lord Damon's," he said, softening his voice in spite of his anger with conscious effort. "You have both fought well and bravely for my House in the early victories in the riverlands and in the Battle of the Banks. All I ask is that you do not impugn mine."

"I see," said Lord Petyr thinly. Lord Damon said even less than that; he merely gazed at Tyrion with narrowed eyes.

Mercifully, the matter passed when the conversation turned back to strategy. "We can't stay in the riverlands," said Ser Cedric Lydden, a nephew to the Lord of the Deep Den, "but it's folly to risk another bloody battle on any but the most favourable terms when Lord Renly already outnumbers us. We can avoid Tyrell and Stark alike if we go by sea. At Dragonstone we'll be safe from the usurper's host. Then all we must do is defeat Paxter Redwyne and we can sail home."

"I thank you for the suggestion, ser," Tyrion said, "but I fear it may not succeed. Lady Selyse lacks the ships to bear us all. It would take several trips back and forth, and the voyage from Dragonstone to Lannisport is a long one. Lord Renly would know of our flight swiftly, for Edmure Tully would find no sign of us and I daresay he'd tell the usurper, to distract him from the riverlands. Then the southerners would march west, and reach our lands before much of our own host."

Ser Cedric said, "The castles of the westerlands will serve our purpose in that."

"Not well enough," answered Tyrion. "Oh, they'd help, but our campaign in the westerlands will be difficult enough in the fullness of our strength. Without that, it'll be nigh impossible. Only overland can we arrive well ahead of the usurper; and only by the more northerly path, on the riverroad, putting us near to the Tully host, can we reach the westerlands without having to come perilously close to the main strength of Lord Renly."

Tyrion paused. No-one spoke. The silence yawned gaping. _Very well. Time to throw myself into the lion's maw._

"Which makes it the only choice… for me. For House Lannister. Not for you. For you, all of you, there remains the alternative choice of treason."

This aroused a veritable storm of protest. Tyrion could scarcely hear for all the shouting. "How dare you!" cried one, and "Never!" another. "Mind that Imp-tongue!" yelled a third, who he thought might be Ser Addam Marbrand. "I'm an honourable man!" shouted a fourth. The lords and knights of the west proclaimed their innocence and threw abuse at the man who had questioned it.

"Silence!" called Tyrion. Nobody heeded him. "Silence!" he shouted more loudly, and was still ignored. At last he ordered one of his guards to hold him up, breathed in so fiercely it hurt his throat, then hurled out the sound at the top of his voice: " _Silence_!"

Silence came. It was broken only by Tyrion's own ragged breath. There he stood, a one-armed dwarf in a taller man's arms, red-faced and panting. He struck a laughable figure, and knew it, and hated that knowledge almost as much as his disfigurement itself.

"I cast no accusation against any man here," he said. "I do not think any of you have betrayed me." _Liar, liar_ , chanted his own thoughts, dwelling on the murder of his lord father and the grisly fate of poor sweet Tommen. "Yet I don't doubt that the thought must have crossed some minds, and that mustn't fester unspoken."

He tried to catch his breath.

"Lord Renly has promised lands to his men, and he attaints any House that defies him to steal its land for his own followers. He calls himself a king, but he's no king. He's nothing more than a bandit chief on a realm-wide scale. If he's victorious, he will get his loot from somewhere, and for him, what better choice than the one of the Seven Kingdoms he's already made his bitterest foe? What better choice than the west? So you'll find no clemency from him."

"Renly Baratheon is a kinslayer as well as a usurper," said Lord Jon Myatt impatiently, "as all of us already knew. Stannis Baratheon could tell you how much clemency even a brother can expect from him. This is no striking new argument worthy of insulting the honour of honest men."

Tyrion rather thought it was _not_ universally agreed among the westerlords that going to Renly was a fool's errand, judging by the deaths of his lord father and his nephew, but he did not wish to contradict another westerlord openly.

"As you say, Lord Jon," Tyrion said with a respectful nod. "But even were I wrong in this, in battle or in treaty men need a leader, a man who can speak and have it be known that he speaks for all. If the noble knights and lords of the west betray me, and betray His Grace, none of you will be strong enough to be elevated above all the others and be able to hold that position. Who wishes to let his rival be his master? None. No man will receive the agreement of his fellows to be Warden of the West, or even if one does, he'll long remember the knife you have planted in the back of House Lannister, and he'll always wonder who might be plotting to put another knife in him. And what if he strikes first, to prevent some imagined foe from overthrowing him? Pervasive mistrust is death to any army or any kingdom. A man can't war if his army won't follow him, and he can't treat if the other man has no confidence that what he says he'll do will be done. Betray House Lannister and that fate will come, certain as a western sunset."

"That is a threat," said Ser Tybolt Crakehall, unperturbed, or at least pretending to be. "What do you promise to give us?"

"Unity," said Tyrion Lannister. "Solidarity. A plan to take us home by the shortest, swiftest path in order to defend our lands from the usurper. A better chance of survival than you'll ever have alone—because I tell you, if you betray me you'll soon be betraying each other. Well did my lord father understand how such anarchy undermines everything. Only strength can stop it, strength and a tradition of unbroken rule. I bring both. Now he has passed, but you may rest assured that with his passing the Lord of Casterly Rock's attitude to treason hasn't grown more merciful."

And he hummed a short snatch of a tune, from the refrain of a song that half the westerlands knew by heart. He did not say the words. He did not need to.

 _And who are you, the proud lord said,  
that I must bow so low?  
Only a cat of a different coat,  
that's all the truth I know._

 _In a coat of gold or a coat of red,  
a lion still has claws,  
and mine are long and sharp, my lord,  
as long and sharp as yours._

 _And so he spoke, and so he spoke,  
that lord of Castamere,  
but now the rains weep o'er his hall,  
with no-one there to hear.  
Yes now the rains weep o'er his hall,  
and not a soul to hear._

There was another, longer silence.

Then Robert Brax the Lord of Hornvale spoke, and every eye in the pavilion fell upon him. "Well, it isn't a superb plan. The chance of losing everything is too high for my liking. But the Warrior hasn't much favoured the men of the westerlands in this war. I think this is the best choice that remains to us." He fell to both knees. "My lord… Lord Lannister, my sword is yours."

"Lord Lannister!" hailed Ser Androw Kenning at once, his knees falling as well.

"Lord Lannister!" cried Ser Ormund Banefort.

"Lord Lannister!" called Ser Tybolt Crakehall, and Ser Richard Hamell, and Ser Jaime Peckledon, and Ser Dennis Plumm, and more. All of those who spoke, Tyrion noticed, were younger men like Robert Brax himself, nearer Tyrion's age than Lord Tywin's. But that trend stopped quickly. Soon others were speaking too, including older lords, swept along by the apparent wave of acclamation. Lords Samwell Hawthorne and Jon Myatt, Lords Lewys Lydden and Amory Garner and even Richard Serrett… none wished to be last to plight their troth, for none wished to be least trusted and lowest in the esteem of the Lord of Casterly Rock. And so the voices of the westerlords rang:

"Lord Lannister! Lord Lannister! Lord Lannister!"

Afterwards, the Lord of Casterly Rock approached Robert Brax and tapped him on the arm. "If the first voice to respond had been opposed, or even equivocal," he said, "that could have ended very differently. House Lannister will not forget this service."

"I thank you for your praise, my lord, but what else would you expect of a Brax?" Lord Robert looked down at Tyrion, his face the very picture of earnestness. "I will always act in the best interests of the westerlands, my lord. Never doubt that."


	7. Chapter 7

**ARYA**

It was dark in the cellars of Kingspyre when the taskmaster came. There were no windows here, and only a few stubs of candles. Even most of those had been put out for the night.

Pinkeye did not usually arrive so late. Pinkeye was not usually _awake_ so late. He had not been here for dinner. When he entered, Arya noticed that he had no cup of ale in his hand. What all of this meant, she could not say, but it made her uneasy.

"Up, layabouts! Up! I don't have all day!"

Most of the servants were slow to rouse themselves, as they usually were with Pinkeye. That was until he rushed to one woman, much older than Arya, and threw her out of her rough straw bed; she fell upon unforgiving stone with a cry of pain. After that, Arya sprang up and out of the cavity in the wall where she slept. She had never seen Pinkeye move so fast before.

"I been speakin' with Ser Amory, told me his orders hisself," Pinkeye announced, as if speaking with a landed knight whom a high lord had chosen to serve as a castellan was the absolute height of authority. Perhaps it was supposed to win him their fear or respect. All that his self-importance got from Arya was contempt. "The west has a new lord. Lord Tyrion Lannister has returned, him what killed all those rebels with ships and wildfire on the Blackwater—a hard lord for a hard time, so don't you go about makin' trouble—an' 'e wants all us goin' west, all together. His lordship's with his army, camped where the kingsroad crosses the high road, north of here. He summoned Ser Amory, so we're comin' to join him. The word came by raven. An' all of you are goin' to work hard, mark my words, I'll flog your hide off elsewise, 'cause Ser Amory sent a raven back, tellin' his lordship we'll march in three days. _Three days_." His chins quivered. "An' if we make Ser Amory look like a liar to his lordship… well. _Well_. You're all goin' work hard as you ever worked, I promise you."

Pinkeye was pacing as he spoke. Arya watched his face. She did not need to remember any of Syrio's words to see the fear.

She tried to sleep that night, knowing she would need it, but it was hard, so hard. Her thoughts were clamouring. She had never paid much attention to Septa Mordane's lessons, but she knew that, of the Seven Kingdoms, the west was the kingdom that belonged to House Lannister. The Lannisters were going home. They were running away. In order to do that, they were gathering at Lord Tyrion's camp like sheep thinking they would be safer from the wolves if they got together in numbers. And yet… and yet… _were_ they going to lose? She hoped so, and if it had been Robb whom they were going to face, she would have thought so too. However, she had heard nothing about Robb for a while, not even the complaints about him despoiling the lands of one lord or another in the westerlands, which had been a regular occurrence before. She had no idea where he was. It was her uncle who was marching against them, and Arya recalled everything that she had overheard about her uncle in all of her time in Harrenhal. Little of it had been flattering. She wanted to believe it was just lies, desperately, but she knew her uncle had lost the big battles that granted the Lannisters their conquest of the lands of the Trident in the first place. That had been long ago; everyone agreed it now; it was not shrouded in rumour like more recent tidings. Ser Jaime Lannister had beaten her uncle Edmure with contemptuous ease. If his lord brother was half as capable…

 _He won't. He can't be._ Arya had to believe that.

Nonetheless, when she spoke her nightly prayer, whispering so soft she could scarcely hear it, she led it with "Lord Tyrion…"

Pinkeye woke up early the next day, for a messenger boy had come to fetch him before dawn. "Compliments of Ser Amory to Goodman Mebble," the boy said. "He wishes you the gods' speed."

"Why, you little runt," Pinkeye began, bleary-eyed and grabbing, but the boy was already out of the door.

He was in a foul mood thenceforth, and he had not lied about the work. Arya still waited at table and fetched water and sent messages, sometimes, but the newest part of her labour was in the vaults beneath Kingspyre Tower. There was a near endless amount of things to count and classify, most of them foodstuffs: oats and wine bottles and sacks of flour and grain and many more. There had been an even greater amount before most of it was taken away to the camp that Lord Tywin had made near the Trident, but the amount that was left was still difficult to conceive of. She had not really understood that before. The vaults were not dark as they had been when she had used them as a way to creep around Harrenhal in nights past, trying and failing to find an unguarded gate. They were brightly lit with the gods alone knew how many candles, as uncounted men and women, girls and boys laboured within. As she could occasionally see when she snatched glances out of windows while working, other servants were building wagons outside, rough quick-built things of freshly hewn timber, and others still, mainly grown men, were carrying heavy things to the yard to load them. The soldiers oversaw them all, and even they were put to work sometimes, for Ser Amory set a harsh pace.

She would have had no time to do all that she had to do, if not for the lack of cleaning. Nobody was dusting floors and steps any more, nor were they fixing broken windows, nor getting rid of cobwebs, nor making new chairs and beds to replace rotted old ones. It frustrated Arya to think that all of her work putting Harrenhal to rights and making it a place fit for living in was a waste, until it occurred to her that King Renly would arrive and take Harrenhal once Ser Amory had gone. Her long toil and that of the other servants would not help the cruel Lannisters who had commanded it but, rather, the Lannisters' bitterest enemy. That pleased her indeed. When she fell asleep that night, she dreamt of King Renly putting Joffrey's golden-haired head on a spike as the steps of Harrenhal shone beneath his feet.

After that, she dreamt of wolves, and her fur was slick with rainwater. She was surrounded by her pack, and she was biggest and strongest of them all; they all went where she led. They crept through a forest, mousy quiet, taking care to avoid stepping on any twigs, and the heavy raindrops masked the noise of her feet on the leaves of red and gold and brown. They ambushed a horse, and some of the others chased it, driving it towards her, and she leapt and put her weight upon it, took it down, bit its throat… and her brothers and sisters joined her for the banquet.

But there was no banquet for Arya when she awoke. There was only an ungenerous helping of a soup that was thin as a blade of grass and a crust of bread that looked like most of the loaf had been eaten by someone else. Somebody else, a girl older and bigger than Arya, snatched the coveted crust of bread, the best part of the meal. Arya, outraged, raised a cry, and Pinkeye saw, and he dragged the other girl out and whipped her. She felt a little bad about it, but not very. The girl was hungry, yes, undoubtedly, but she was hungry too.

It occurred to her that they had been serving together for gods only knew how long and yet she did not know the girl's name. Arya had been careful not to pay attention to the names of the other people who had been serving Weese, then Pinkeye. Most of them were older than her and paid her little heed, so it was easy for her to stay away, and it was better that way. Keep her distance and it would hurt less when they died.

As the sun rose and fell, the pace that was demanded of them grew. Pinkeye was drinking more and more, surpassing his usual prodigious quantities, and his temper was shorter every hour than the last. The times he allotted for each task were ever briefer, and he was infuriated whenever anyone did not adhere to them. Plenty of servants like Arya found themselves neglecting messages. The kitchen folk, she judged, were making the food rather less carefully, except the meals of Ser Amory and the men who stood highest in his service. But there was no escape for the poor men who had to drag things from the vaults of Kingspyre—not, thankfully, the vaults of the other towers too—and load them onto the wagons. It was an immense task, and could not be pretended to be complete when it was not. There was no recourse but honest labour. By the third day after the evening when Pinkeye had told them all about the decision, his wrath was at its height. All of the servants under Pinkeye were tired. None were given respite. By then, he had them running, not walking, whenever they needed to get between one part of Harrenhal and another, and every task was completed in a rush, for fear of a beating.

All of the screaming and shouting and threatening did not suffice. The three days passed, and then another, then another. Only then were they ready to depart.

Arya and a cluster of other servants were led out of the castle's main gate, joining a sprawling train of wagons. Armed westermen wearing Lorch and Brax colours, the garrison that Lord Tywin had left here, stood all around them, brandishing spears and swords, their eyes everywhere as if to expect an attack this very moment. Nonetheless, she waited for another few hours until the last of Ser Amory's men left Harrenhal, having searched the castle for any lost supplies or any servants who might have disappeared. They had opened all of the doors to help vermin get through, she heard them tell the castellan, and they had laid waste to the kitchen, cut up the beds and broken the shelves and furniture. As little as possible was to be left for Renly Baratheon to take.

As she waited, Arya gazed up at the thick, gigantically high walls above her. Old Nan had said that Harren the Black, the evil king of the ironmen in a past age, had spent dozens of years to build those walls. He had beggared the iron islands and the riverlands, brought about the death of thousands of toiling thralls, and even mixed the blood of children like Arya (Old Nan's voice rose to sudden loudness when she said this) into the mortar, in order to build the greatest castle in the world. Men said that Harrenhal was cursed, haunted by the ghosts of King Harren and his sons, destined to bring about the doom of whoever held it. Arya hoped that it was true. _If there is a curse_ , she thought, _no-one deserves it as much as Ser Amory…_

 _No. Not no-one. Some do._

 _Lord Tyrion and King Joffrey. Ser Amory, Ser Gregor, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn. Pinkeye. Dunsen, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound._

 _I have to remember their names._

How much of her life had she spent here, under the colossal shadow of these walls? Weeks? Moons? Years? Arya did not know. Her time in Harrenhal had been governed by commands and repetitive labour. Sometimes that meant all the days blended into one, and sometimes it meant that they seemed to be simply the way the world was and had forever been. Sometimes it felt recent that she, Gendry and Hot Pie had been brought here by Ser Gregor and his men, Chiswyck who had raped Layna and Raff who had murdered Lommy and all the others. Sometimes it felt that she had lived here as long as she had lived at Winterfell.

She was glad to leave. Life in the wild had been difficult and dangerous, trying to hide that she was a girl and to avoid Lannister men and to survive off little bugs she had to find, and at Harrenhal, at least, she had been safe, but somehow Harrenhal was worse. When travelling with Yoren or with Lommy Greenhands, Hot Pie and Gendry, she had not had to endure seeing Ser Amory do whatever he wanted and have to keep her head down and obey anyway. The Braavosi man who did not truly have a name had helped, but she had used up all her wishes from him now, and that left her powerless. In the wild she had been a wolf, albeit a weak and starving one. Now she was a mouse. The wolf had packmates, like the wolf in her dreams. The mouse had none. Lommy was dead and Hot Pie hated her and Gendry had betrayed her. The mouse just had to scurry along, alone, and do whatever people who were not mice told her to.

She did not think she had ever hated any place as much as this. Mayhaps the Great Sept of Baelor, where Ser Ilyn Payne had cut off Father's head.

The last of Ser Amory's men came to the yard, and the castellan gave a shout. Arya looked up at and over the top of a huge gatehouse the size of the keep at Winterfell. High loomed the walls, and above the walls rose the eerie twisted shapes of the Tower of Dread, the Tower of Ghosts, the Widow's Tower, the Wailing Tower and Kingspyre Tower, Kingspyre above them all, Kingspyre highest and most terrible. She looked at it for a long while. It was hard to imagine being gone. She had no illusions that the Lannisters would take her somewhere she wanted to be, but it could not be worse than Harrenhal. Wherever she ended up, it could not be vaster or more inescapable.

Gigantic hinges creaked. The main gate of Harrenhal opened. Arya passed through it and did not look back again.

The northward march was long and bitter, for Ser Amory set a hard pace. There were long days and short nights, and not just because of summer. He was desperate not to be the last of House Lannister's men in the riverlands to reach the camp of his liegelord's army, and for those whose slowness hindered him he had little mercy. One of the servants from Harrenhal, a white-haired man who Arya had heard had served House Whent for many years ere Lord Tywin came, fell over one day and did not get up. A man-at-arms badged with the manticore of Lorch helped him to his feet, and he went on. He fell over again later, and it took half an hour to get him walking again. When, on the next day, he fell over again and could not be made to keep walking no matter how much they tried, they did not bear his weight. They simply left him there, in the dirt, unable to rouse himself to stand, and moved on.

The former garrison of Harrenhal were not the only folk here. Smallfolk of the southern riverlands watched them from afar with resentful eyes. Ser Amory had too many armed men with him to dare an attack, so the people from Harrenhal were left mostly unmolested, but some did try. The servants ate in the mornings and evenings, for they had more than enough food on their wagons, and walked for all the time in between. That was enough to attract greedy eyes. Small bands of men came sometimes, day or night, not to throw the Lannisters out of the riverlands, as Arya had hoped, but simply to steal their food. Ser Amory's men were more numerous, though, and always drove them off.

At first, Ser Amory had two or three hundred soldiers, by Arya's reckoning—it was too many to count—but that number soon grew. For it was not only outlaws whom they saw. There were also other bands of westermen, making for the same place as themselves. They gathered together for security, and Ser Amory's group was larger than any other that Arya saw come near, so Ser Amory took precedence and the other groups of westermen joined his. By the time they were near the camp, many days after they left—days or weeks? Arya could not be sure—there were at least twice as many as there had been before, and banners from plenty of other Houses joined the purple unicorn and black manticore.

Before the soldiers taking her to Lord Tyrion's camp had grown so numerous, Arya espied a red-haired woman of near her lady mother's age sitting with a group of other women as they played dice one night, much older and bigger and stronger than her. She could not say for sure why it was that woman whom she chose to approach with her hopes, and not any of the other servants. Perhaps it was just the resemblance to Mother.

"So what's this about, lass?" said the tall woman, not unkindly, after Arya crept over and woke her up for a late-night conversation.

"You saw how that old man died," said Arya.

"Aye," the woman said with a sigh. "Poor Rick, he deserved better."

Arya affected uncertainty. "Ser Amory is a knight, I know, knights do what's just, but the septon always said… what he did… that… was that really just?"

"It wasn't," the tall woman said solemnly. "The Father will judge Ser Amory for that, and not kindly, I'll warrant."

"Does that mean he's bad?"

"Aye. Take care, don't you come too close to the likes o' him, don't you let him notice you."

 _She wants me safe._ Encouraged by the tall woman's sympathy, Arya went on. "Well, we don't have to stay here with the bad people."

"What do you mean? Someone been fillin' up your head with ideas? Old Steff, I'd reckon, that vagabond…" She knelt down to be level with Arya, and spoke gently. "Pay them no heed. That's dangerous, girl. All it'll do is get you killed. The lions will take your head."

"Not if they can't," said Arya fiercely. At the evident doubt on the tall woman's face, she pressed on: "Nobody's been giving me ideas, _I_ thought of it. There are lots more servants here than soldiers, and most of the soldiers are sleeping now, anyway. If we planned it, and woke up all the other servants sometime in a night, we could escape."

"S'pose we could," the woman said, "though doubtless some of us die, even if we win. Where will we go?"

Arya wanted to say, "Winterfell," but dared not. Instead she said, "Home."

"That can't be done," said the tall woman in a voice that held a note of pity. "The wolves came to my home, moons past. They started off polite-like. They said they was friends, they wanted food for their lord's host, we in Hamsworth got none to spare. Old granddad Jaime says, we need all we've got for winter. It's been a long summer, winter'll be long too. Well, they didn't like that answer none, so they stuck a spear in Jaime's gut and burnt our crops for sayin' no to them, and stole and slaughtered our cattle anyway. Later the lions came… It's shit here, but it's shitter everywhere else. At least a Lannister servant gets food. A farmer got nothin' to farm, she ain't gettin' nothin'. I can't live off ash. If I could make everything be the way things were, before the lions and wolves came, aye, that'd be a dream come true, but I can't, child. No-one can do that." She placed a consoling hand on Arya's shoulder. "No-one can make yesterday come after today. We _can't_ go back home."

Arya could not believe it. She had thought she was so close, and now she would be denied? "I still want to go home, please," she said. "No-one burnt _my_ home."

The warmth in the tall woman's voice disappeared abruptly. "Nice for some. Why does that mean we should fight and die for you?"

Arya just looked at her for a moment, then turned on her heel and ran away, not wanting the tall woman to see the tears in her eyes.

What the tall woman had said was bothering Arya. She had said that wolves had burnt down her home, wolves, House Stark, not lions… but surely that could not be right. It must have been the Lannisters. She knew plenty of northmen, like the scullery maids who would clean her clothes and the stableboys who would smile and saddle ponies for her. They were good people. Northmen, her family's men, would never do a thing like that.

It occurred to her that this same woman had wanted to stay with the Lannisters. _She's just a Lannister pawn_ , Arya decided. _She was lying, of course she was lying, Lannisters always lie._

There seemed to be an awful lot of Lannister pawns, though. She dared not approach anyone else, lest she be reported to Ser Amory, so she had no other conversations like she had had with the tall woman, but she did know that no large group of people had tried to escape.

They marched on, and at last they drew near to the camp of a great host. There were tents as far as the eye could see, and a dazzling array of standards of every hue flapped above them. Arya recognised many of them from the army that Lord Tywin had led out of Harrenhal: stars, unicorns, badgers, boars, jugglers, ferrets, oxen, beetles, hoods… Sansa would have known which Houses they were. To Arya, it sufficed to know that they were foes. Beyond doubt it was the host of the westerlands, the heart of the enemy, the host that would shortly be marching to confront her uncle Edmure and try to kill him.

 _I hope Uncle Edmure kills them instead_ , she thought.

Dozens of mounted knights and lords in fine surcoats and shining armour were waiting to greet them outside that sprawling hive of men, guarded by hundreds of lowborn men in scarlet cloaks and helmets shaped like lions. The escort alone outnumbered all of the soldiers with Ser Amory. At their centre, deferred to by all of the others—who waited and let him be the first to speak—rode a man who was not wearing armour. Arya was watching from afar, but from the stunted frame and the now-widely-rumoured maiming it was easy to recognise Tyrion Onearm of House Lannister, the Lord of Casterly Rock.

It was strange to imagine the ugly little man whom she had seen in Winterfell as a powerful enemy leader. But that was what he was. The Lannisters were enemies, Arya knew, and the dwarf who had seemed harmless at Winterfell was not just any Lannister but the head of their House. He was the master of her family's enemies, she must never forget.

Ser Amory and his liegelord spoke. Arya could see the latter's mouth moving, though Ser Amory was facing away from her and she was too distant to make out the words. After a while Lord Tyrion's eyes flicked down the column, and for a dreadful moment Arya thought that she would be seen, but the Lord of Casterly Rock's gaze passed over her without recognition. He had seen her before, but, thankfully, Arya Stark the daughter of the Lord of Winterfell looked little like Weasel the roughspun-clad maid.

Something happened in that far-off conversation, and Lord Tyrion and his vassals rode off together, doubtless to discuss the war. Arya did not get to see where they went. A detachment of Ser Amory's soldiers took them into the nest of tents, led by some men who had come from within. There was another quarter-hour of walking— _it's just a camp, how big can a camp be?_ —before they reached a group of tents with lots of men and women, most of them older than her father, all of them unarmed.

"Queue up," the soldiers barked, gesturing threateningly with spears and swords, pushing Arya and the others into a line. There they awaited judgement. She saw Gendry, ahead of her, taken to a man with sooty hands, and Hot Pie taken to a severe-looking older woman.

She did not expect that she would see either of them ever again.

Eventually it was Arya's turn. She came to be judged and a wrinkly white-haired woman asked, "What does this one do?"

"She's one of mine," said Pinkeye. He, like all the other heads of servants at Harrenhal, was standing near the front of the queue, helping to sort the servants. "Lots o' things. Draw water from the wells, fetch food, serve at table for the men, clean, carry messages… I didn't have lots at Harrenhal, y'know, I couldn't get too picky. She ain't much use, though, mark my words. She keeps on slackin'."

"Mebble says that 'bout every man, woman and child what ever served 'im," a short bearded man observed, and ignored Pinkeye's outraged response as if he were an ant beneath his heel. "Well, Marge, what d'you reckon?"

The severe-looking woman pronounced, "Too skinny and short to labour much. She'd be shit at cleanin' or bearin' water." Arya felt indignant, but stopped herself from protesting that description. She did not want 'Marge' to change her mind. "Messengers or waiters, I say."

"Could be either," said a man with blond hair and bushy eyebrows. "What say you, child? Speak swift, mind. We've no time to waste playin' coy."

It was the decision of an instant. Last time she had been like this, with Goodwife Harra and Goodwife Amabel at Harrenhal, she had made a mistake. She would not repeat it. "Waiters, please."

She would stay close to the food.

"You're Jeyne's, then," said the blond man, jerking a thumb. "Run along."

Arya followed the direction that he pointed, and she found that 'Jeyne' was a short round woman with greying hair. "Now who might you be, dear?"

The thought of changing names again flashed across her mind, for Arya did not much like the name she had blindly adopted in a moment of sudden shock and fear, but she decided reluctantly not to. There were too many people who had been in Harrenhal here, who would know her face. "Weasel."

Jeyne's eyebrows rose, but she said nothing, no pointed remark. "Well, I'm glad to have you here, Weasel. We'll wait for any others, then I'll show you the way to your new home."

There were a few others, and a dozen who had come before Arya. Jeyne led the huddle of servants on another walk, to a plain white tent near some stores of food where she could see a butcher working. Arya's mouth watered. Absently she noticed that none of the servants working under Jeyne were much older than herself. Things seemed so neat and organised in this army camp, much more than they had been in the great decaying expanse of Harrenhal.

"You hungry, dears?" said Jeyne. "Can't have that. Folk don't go hungry here, not when we don't lack for food. If no-one feeds a waiter, no man else will se-e his meal!" She chuckled, as if it were a matter fit to make jests of. Perhaps to her it was.

It was no such matter to Arya, who tore into the bread and trout and ate it in big gulps. She did not know how long it had been since she received such a good meal. Weeks? Moons? Weese had promised her a treat once at Harrenhal, she vaguely remembered, which would have been better than this, but Weese had lied. The plump capon supper had never come.

"Now then," said Jeyne, once they had all finished, "you ought know your way around 'ere."

Some of the other servants under her were sent to show Arya and her fellows their way around the camp. She tried to remember all the different banners and all the different sorts of soldiers, though she doubted she would manage to do so now. Still, as the days passed, she learnt quickly, and soon she was bringing the food that authority had allotted to various groups of men and serving them at table. She got into the habit easily enough. One thing she noticed was that there was much less work in this camp than there had been at Harrenhal. There was much less to clean and maintain, and the soldiers could do much more for themselves… which made her curious as to why she was here. The Lannisters had more servants than they needed, and Jeyne did not seem cruel.

It was four days after she had come that Arya worked up the courage to visit her taskmaster and ask about it openly. "Goodwife Jeyne, does his lordship have more servants here than he needs?" She had been corrected in the past—firmly, though without any hint of anger or condemnation—for calling him 'Lord Tyrion'.

Jeyne smiled at her. "You _are_ a clever lass, aren't you, dear? Aye, there's fewer needed here than when we were all at Harrenhal, ere the Battle of the Banks. Takin' care of armies, it ain't like for castles."

"Then what'll happen to us when his lordship marches? Will we be sent away?" It took iron will to keep her hope out of her voice.

"Heard about that, have you?" Jeyne looked rueful. "I s'pose it's the talk of every man now. Can't be 'elped. Well, Weasel, don't you worry the likes o' that. Servants take time to train, and no-one ever got as rich as the Lannisters by being wasteful. You're a good hard worker. With others it's 'chatter, chatter, chatter' or 'complain, complain, complain', but you just stay quiet and get things done. Keep at it, and that'll raise you high, might be even higher than meself. The Lannisters are good to those as serves them well." She gave Arya a hug. "You've nowt to fear, Weasel, I promise. You'll do well at Casterly Rock."


	8. Chapter 8

**LYLE**

It did not take Lyle long to find a ship bound for Dragonstone: the _Flower of Oldtown_ , a fat three-masted carrack, whose captain meant to pick up a cargo of dragonglass to sell to the glaziers of Myr.

"And your name?"

"Ben," said Lyle, "and the lad's my son, Petyr."

Captain Willem gave a disdainful glance to Prince Tommen Baratheon, heir to the Iron Throne. "Bald already, is he?"

Lyle shrugged. "Nits, mate. Y'know how it is."

He had heard that very poor boys were sometimes shorn of their hair to get rid of headlice. Going by the captain's response, Lyle supposed that either it was true or Willem did not know enough to contradict him.

Willem grunted. "Don't s'pose you can pay, then."

Lyle put a hand inside the linen clothes he had procured hurriedly from the merchant and it came out with silver. The bag Lord Tywin had provided for his grandson's expenses contained more than enough.

"Well, that'll do," said Willem, arching an eyebrow. "Don't expect anything fancy, mind you. You'll get a cabin big enough to sleep in and a share of the mess, till we're at Dragonstone. Then you get off. That's all I promise."

Lyle and his charge boarded the _Flower of Oldtown_ at once, not wishing to stay on land in this place any longer than they had to. The longer they stayed here, amongst the great host of the westerlands that was encamped where the kingsroad crossed the Trident, the likelier it was that the men who had murdered Lord Tywin would find Lord Tywin's grandson. Late that day, Captain Willem got back on board, and he sent a boy from his crew to show Lyle and Prince Tommen where they would sleep.

As soon as he laid eyes upon it, Lyle realised that even Willem's unappealing description had been an embellishment. This was no cabin. It was a cargo hold where the boy from the crew was hastily setting up two threadbare and moth-eaten hammocks.

Tommen spoke up, "But the captain said—"

Lyle slapped him. Not hard, but hard enough that Prince Tommen stopped and looked up at him in shock.

"Carry on, lad," Lyle said.

When the ship's boy was gone, Tommen said plaintively, "You _hit_ me, ser." Thankfully he seemed more surprised and questioning than angry. That was strange, for a prince who was surely unaccustomed to such. _Mayhaps he has more of his father's strength in him than I thought._

"I'm sorry, my prince, I had to. You mustn't complain. We'll sleep here and take what we're given."

"But this isn't a cabin, ser, and the captain said we'd have a cabin," Tommen protested. "He lied!"

"What of it? Of course he did. We're just two poor travellers as far as he's concerned, naught but purses for him to lighten. Petyr son of Ben isn't accustomed to anything better. He was born in the gutter, begging my prince's pardon. You dare not let them notice you're highborn, else this ship will be heading for King's Landing as fast as the wind can bear her, to deliver you into the hands of the usurper. Take care, my prince. One misplaced word could cost your head."

Tommen nodded tearfully. "I'll try, Ser Lyle. I'll do better, I promise."

The _Flower of Oldtown_ sailed downstream along the Trident for more than a day. Lyle and Prince Tommen stood or sat on her deck, watching the bustle of Lord Tywin's camp give way to a rural idyll of small villages and sheep and cattle, marred by patches of rubble, ash and blackened ruins where armies had pillaged. She passed the town of Saltpans, plundered and burnt, and a little island for which Lyle knew no name, then ventured out into the Bay of Crabs. Late in the evening, the riverlands gave way to open water.

The sea left little to look for, though the sailors were hard at work in the shallow, sometimes rocky waters of the bay. Crackclaw Point was not mountainous country. There was no shield between the carrack and the storms that stirred in the Narrow Sea. There were fierce winds that beset her, and rain that poured down upon Lyle's head in sudden and unpredictable deluges, but her crew battled day and night to avoid the rocks and bail out the water, and their skill proved true. After four more days, she passed the utmost tip of Crackclaw Point and left the Bay of Crabs behind her.

Beyond Crackclaw Point the _Flower of Oldtown_ set course southward for a further two days. The waters in Blackwater Bay were deeper and wider than those in the Bay of Crabs. Here were no rocks to be feared; the land where Lyle had stood sank under the horizon and receded into nothing. But these waters were even less sheltered from autumn storms than those before, and amidst the howling winds there could be no easy sleep.

So it was that Lyle's eyes were shrouded with dark circles when the jagged spire of Dragonmount climbed out of the sea. It could be seen long before any other part of the island around it, and every town, every village, every aspect of the rest of the island brooded in its shadow. The settlements in most parts of Dragonstone were little more than fishing villages; no ship of respectable size could sail amidst such cruel and craggy rocks. The _Flower of Oldtown_ had to sail around to the eastern side of the island to find the town of Dragonsport, which had a great harbour for her to moor. And when she did, Lyle saw for the first time the seat of Aegon the Conqueror.

The castle of Dragonstone, named for the island where it lay, was great and towering, though it was dwarfed by the vastness of the mountain from whose eastern face it arose. It was wrought entirely of a single form of stone, dark as a midnight sky, yet glittering, and countless beasts of queer legend and dreadful history perched all about it as its gargoyles.

Ruddy light lined the horizon when the _Flower of Oldtown_ docked in the harbour of Dragonsport, though black-bottomed clouds had stolen the sight of the sun. The berths were full of ships. Many of them were fishing boats, the lifeblood of Dragonstone. Many were cogs, with sigils of seahorses, stags, swordsmen and swordfish. Many were merchantmen like the _Flower of Oldtown_. But Lyle's heart was most gladdened to see the galleys of the royal fleet, hundreds of warships flying the black stag on gold of Baratheon. The heart of Dragonstone's power, at least at sea, had not been as diminished in the Battle of King's Landing as he had feared.

Lyle watched the sailors work and the bustle of piers, market squares, brewhouses, inns, smokehouses, storehouses, stalls, shops and shacks come closer. The rain was torrential, water droplets crashing hard and fast against the ground. _Drop-drop-drop-drop-drop._

When the _Flower of Oldtown_ 's anchor had dropped, Lyle grasped his charge's hand. "Father?" Prince Tommen replied, instead of "ser". The boy was getting better at that. Lyle suspected that, of the two of them, it was himself who was the more uncomfortable.

"We must check for anything we've left behind," Lyle said, and the prince followed him out of the rain, down to their sorry excuse for a cabin. Lyle removed the bag that he held always beneath his cloak and dug around in it. The patched, grey and brown servants' clothes that he and his charge had worn so briefly in Lord Tywin's camp, which he had kept in case they be needed to hide later, were at the top, to conceal the rest; they were the least necessary of his possessions, most bearable if they were lost. The coins of silver and gold, the allowance Lord Tywin had provided to his grandson, lay underneath. Hopefully any thief would take those, count himself blessed and stop looking. Below them, most precious of all, was Lyle's fine snow-white cloak, gifted to him by the Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms when he was raised to the order of the Kingsguard, and, wrapped within it, the curly golden locks that he had cut from Prince Tommen's head: the best proof he had of their identities to the Lady Dowager of Dragonstone.

"I don't think anyone took your possessions, Ser Lyle," offered Tommen.

"That is not why we are here, my prince," said Lyle, though in truth he had worried a little, however foolish such fears might be. "We must speak of our plans for today." He kept his voice quiet, though it meant Tommen had to come close to hear him, for even here raindrops could be heard hammering on the deck above. _Drop-drop-drop-drop-drop._

"Aren't we going to my lady aunt's castle?" said Prince Tommen, blinking. He added, "Though it would be nice to have some supper."

"No. Or I should say, not yet. Lady Selyse won't be as likely to trust us if we creep in at this hour, like thieves in the night. Moreover, I don't know where she stands."

"You mean, she might be like the westerlords who betrayed Grandfather?" said Tommen. Lyle had explained the truth behind Lord Tywin's death to his charge. It would do the prince no good to be sheltered from knowledge of the treachery of men.

"Yes," said Lyle, pleased at how well the prince listened and how quickly he grasped the situation. Not for the first time, he wondered how Prince Tommen could possibly be a brother to Joffrey. "We'll go to an inn—a dirty sort of inn, not some grand place fit for lords or rich merchants—and hear what common fishermen and sailors say in their cups. They ought to know whether Lady Selyse has made peace with the usurper, and they'll speak of it with less care than the powerful. Then, if we think your lady aunt is loyal, we'll go to the castle, joining the men seeking audiences with their liege, and reveal ourselves to her on the morrow."

"And if she isn't?"

Lyle winced. "We must hope not…" The voice of the Lord Regent rang in his head: _Come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe._ "If Lady Selyse is a traitor, I will take you across the Narrow Sea. If neither the westerlands nor Dragonstone holds true, we have no hope of taking back your father's throne."

Prince Tommen absorbed this solemnly.

"Now when we leave," Lyle said, "remember this, my prince. We left the capital before the war. Your father is a trader, and not a rich one. Avoid speaking to people if you can help it, though don't be so silent it makes you suspicious. If anyone speaks with you at length, they might understand you know little of what a trader's son should know and too much of what he shouldn't. I beg your pardon, but I dare not call you by your title any more, even in our room, until we're safe in your lady aunt's castle. Men are treacherous. If they knew who you are and knew you have only one man to protect you, many would kidnap or kill you in a heartbeat for a little of Lord Renly's gold."

With that, Lyle and his charge left the _Flower of Oldtown_ behind them. After setting foot on a pier in Dragonsport, he rushed for an inn, not the first one that Prince Tommen saw—a smart-looking place with neat brickwork and clean glass windows—but another, grimier and in the other direction. Lyle was drenched as he ran. There was no lightning, but the rain was thunderous. _Drop-drop-drop-drop-drop._

He stepped inside, clutching his sopping wet cloak, and entered a loud common room filled with dozens of rough-faced sailors and salt-smelling fishermen. Most of them were drunk. Lyle clutched Prince Tommen's hand hard amidst the press of men, not daring to risk losing the boy. Heads turned to look at them, for Lyle was a big man, tall and broad and well-built; it was not for his martial prowess alone that men called him Strongboar. But he refrained from pushing his way through the other men to get closer to the hearth, trying to act as if he were accustomed to being in places such as this, and soon the heads turned away.

Lyle hung his cloak near the fire, ordered a pint of what turned out to be blisteringly sharp ale and took a seat far from the hearth. All of the warmer seats were taken. Prince Tommen sat beside him on a rickety wooden chair much too large for a boy of eight. They rested, and listened, and said nothing.

To Lyle's frustration, the men did not seem to wish to speak about the war. They spoke to each other about recent hauls of fish and the closure of an ironmongery and complaints about the weather and who was sleeping with whose sister. Perhaps they knew of Lady Selyse's decisions about the war, but if they did, they all knew, and they did not have new tidings of it to share with one another. As Lyle listened to more and more of this drivel he wanted to shake them awake. He was not here to hear the petty gossip of peasants. Did these fools not know that their island was a centrepiece of the war that was raging across the Seven Kingdoms? _The Iron Throne is seat to a usurper, and here I stand, hearing about where it has lately been best to find haddock!_

Yet he dared not attempt to redirect the conversation to his ends. Doubtless there would be some genuine traders in this inn's common room. If he spoke, some might ask about his supposed occupation, and he would know little of what he should. Nor did he dare to drift between seats to try to eavesdrop on different men, lest he reveal that he was here for information.

In a foul mood, Lyle bought a room for the night and led his charge there. He gave Prince Tommen the bed and took the floor for himself. Though he was tired and the hard, dry wooden panels were not as uncomfortable as some places he had slept on on campaign, he slept little, for the roof and the walls were thinner than they should have been. They failed to block out the noise of the downpour, rainwater battering the ground incessantly. _Drop-drop-drop-drop-drop._

The next day, Lyle took his charge outside and had to explain to him, without truly explaining, why they were not heading to the castle, with cryptic words about not knowing "how things lie". He wandered around the shops and piers and market squares of Dragonsport with Prince Tommen. It was against Lyle's instinct as a knight of the Kingsguard to take the prince through such a dangerous place, with far too many men to count and watch, any of whom could be Lord Renly's hired knives, when there was only one man, himself, to protect him. However, leaving the boy alone without him would be worse.

Nonetheless, the folk of Dragonsport seemed more interested in matters of herring, cod and plaice than in matters of roses, stags and lions, so Lyle heard naught of what he was seeking for three days more. Then, late one afternoon, more ships arrived from the south: a little fleet of cogs rendered for the movement of men-at-arms, each and every one flying a banner that was mostly white but had three stripes across its upper right corner, as golden as the lion of Lannister.

When the whiteness of the banners could only just be made out in the distance, a man behind Lyle remarked to his neighbour, "Them's Chyttering men, I reckon. Only old Lord Hendry's folk still comin', then I s'pose they're all goin' off."

The other man grunted and spoke no more of it, but that was enough. Lyle's heart was racing. He recognised the name of the Chytterings of Fenmouth from the south of Massey's Hook, one of the six greatest vassal Houses sworn to Dragonstone, and when, later, the ships were close enough for him to see the bendlets he knew that the sigil was correct as well. The Sunglasses of Sweetport Sound were another such House, and Hendry Sunglass was their lord. Those few seconds had given him more of the information he needed than the previous few days. Lady Selyse was gathering her bannermen, and not just to make a strong garrison at Dragonstone. She intended to send them forth to war once more.

Lyle had to force himself to be calm. He did not yet know where they would be sailing to. Quite possibly the rest of the island did not know; Lady Selyse might prefer secrecy. Mayhaps she meant to collect an army of stormlanders and Reachmen at King's Landing and carry them to the mouth of the Trident, and then upstream, to confront the western host, for she might not know that many of the lords and highborn knights of the west had already betrayed their king and murdered their liege for Renly. But if he stayed and watched, he might obtain a better idea of Lady Selyse's intentions.

Lyle watched them come upon the port with a soldier's practised eye. These ignorant fisherfolk might be impressed, but he knew better. Groups of House Chyttering's men reaching land clustered together uncertainly as gaggles of friends before eventually, with the aid of their sergeants, arranging themselves properly in formation. These men knew how to hold their weapons and don their armour, and they knew formation, but they were too slow to react with order and discipline in a situation they were not prepared for. _These men are green as grass_ , Lyle thought. He hoped that the rest of Lady Selyse's men were more seasoned but feared that they would not be. The lands of the Narrow Sea had lost thousands of their menfolk in the Clash of the Stags and a goodly number more at King's Landing, and they had never been a populous domain in the first place.

Lyle was not a lone watcher. A crowd gathered in Dragonsport to see the men of House Chyttering disembark. So did a welcoming party of Dragonstone men, a hundred men-at-arms wearing surcoats with the crowned stag of Baratheon.

From among the ranks of Chyttering soldiers, a tall broad man in silvery armour strode forth to greet the Baratheon men. His herald named him as "Ser Arthur Hartford, the Knight of Hartford, sworn bannerman and brother to Danelle of the House Chyttering, Lady Regent of Fenmouth."

A stout, hairy man with a double chin, armoured but allowing the newly arriving men to see his face, stepped out from among the Baratheon men, and his own herald cried, "Announcing Axell of the House Florent, Lord of Brightwater, victor of the Blackwater, master of ships and lord commander of the host at Dragonstone for His Grace the King!"

 _They have stayed true._ Lyle exhaled with relief. His fear had been needless. Lord Axell Florent would not still be calling himself a member of the king's small council if the king he meant was Renly. The usurper would never allow one of the men who had brought about his humiliating defeat in the Battle of the Blackwater to hold such a lofty place.

"Greetings, Ser Arthur. It is a pleasure to meet you and welcome you to Dragonstone on my lady niece's behalf," Lord Axell said. "I look forward to working with you." He gave Ser Arthur a firm handshake.

"Likewise," said the knight in gleaming armour, shaking hands, and then his left hand cut Lord Axell's throat.

Fenmouth men charged at the men of Dragonstone, arrayed in neat lines as if for parade. The first line of Baratheon soldiers scarce had time to process what had just happened and lift their swords before the enemy were upon them. Ser Arthur Hartford's men slew them swiftly, then came at the others. The Chyttering men were inexperienced, but the Baratheon men were equal in that, and the Chytterings had the numbers, more than two to one. Screams and shrieks of men and metal filled Lyle's ears, and the world turned to shock and savagery.

He spent seconds there, gazing, feet rooted to the ground; then he got over his surprise, judged in an instant that there was no chance, and ran.

The crowd split in all directions, screaming. Old men, young men, mothers, maidens, boys, crones… all turned on their heels and fled. Dragonsport emptied itself of people, fast as their legs could bear them. It was a crush of mankind, too many people too close, and any who were small or frail could easily be trampled by the big and strong. Few were bigger or stronger than Lyle, but Prince Tommen was different. His hand was torn from Lyle's in an instant by a pair of brothers rushing for their lives, and Lyle had to stop, turn around and force his way through the crowd through bulk alone to find him and pick him up again. It was tiresome work forcing himself against such a fearsome flow of men, even for Lyle. By the time he found the boy bruised and bleeding on the floor, most of the watchers had already gone. He bent down, picked him up, and fled for his life and for the life of his charge.

At first he was just running, thoughtless, fleeing in blind panic. Then it occurred to him where he must run. This was surely the prelude to a grand attack; Danelle Chyttering would never dare to be so bold alone, else Lady Selyse's men elsewhere on the island would retake Dragonsport and defeat her. This only made sense if the men of Fenmouth meant to burn the royal fleet and enable Lord Renly's southerners to seize the island. _Dragonstone must not fall, or the cause is lost._ But there was a way to stop it. He needed the men-at-arms in the castle of Dragonstone. If they came quickly enough, they might be able to keep the royal fleet and defeat the Fenmouth traitors.

Lyle made for a place he had seen before to be a stable. It was empty, its owners recently fled, so he put his charge down, shoved some silver on the table and found a dapple grey mare. He hastily saddled her, then, gasping with the effort, plucked plump Prince Tommen up high and put him on her back. He himself mounted, holding his trampled prince, and left the blood and chaos of Dragonsport behind him.

The only straight way to Dragonstone from the eastern side of the island, where Dragonsport lay, was a perilously steep climb. Instead, Lyle spurred his mount to a gallop on a path that went past the castle and then back again, winding around Dragonmount, several times. It was a journey of miles, and though he knew it was faster this way than climbing, he fretted for the lost time. Dragonstone the island was too large; Dragonstone the castle was too far from Dragonsport to see or hear what was happening unless the Fenmouth men torched the ships, and, Lyle realised, they would probably seize the royal fleet, not burn it. Danelle Chyttering's men did not need to hold Dragonstone against the strength of its loyal defenders for long, only long enough for the true enemy to arrive. Every moment he delayed was another moment Lord Renly's men would get to reach the island.

He rode on, and stopped at a place near Dragonstone's main gate. They were not actually at the gate—that would take one more circuit around Dragonmount—so Lyle prayed his voice was loud enough to be heard from more than a hundred feet below.

" _Danger_!" he roared at the top of his voice. " _Lady Danelle's a traitor! They're attacking_! _The Chytterings are attacking now_! _I need to speak to the lady_!"

The guards on the gate must have been gazing down at a single, apparently unarmed, inoffensive-looking smallfolk man and his son. The gate did not open. Lyle's heart sank. Clearly they had heard that he had spoken, but they had not made out the words, or, if they had, they were not going to let him in.

 _I've no need to reach them. I only need be heard._ Leaving the mare with Tommen, he pulled himself up the jutting dark rock with his bare hands, struggling to climb. "Treason! There's an attack!" he called, again and again. "Send help!"

At last, to Lyle's surprise, the gate opened and a man walked out, surrounded by armoured men whose surcoats bore sigils of stags, seahorses and swordfish. He was slender as a rapier, handsome and exquisitely well-dressed, wearing silks of blue-green and a shade of silver that matched the colour of his hair. He craned his head to look at Lyle, forty feet down.

"I am Aurane Waters, of Driftmark, second-in-command of this castle by the will of Lady Selyse," the slender man said. "Speaking to me is as good as speaking to her ladyship; I've just been dining with her now. What tidings do you bring, goodman?"

Lyle slumped against the rock face in relief. "Danelle Chyttering has betrayed the king!" he yelled. "Her brother murdered Lord Axell in cold blood and her men attacked his escort."

"Warrior defend us!" Waters swore. "Such treachery!"

"I think she has two or three hundred," called Lyle, trying to make sure the relieving force had as much information as he could give them. "Dragonsport is theirs by now, most like. You'll need—"

"Roses."

A moment of silence—then the Bar Emmon and Velaryon soldiers fell upon their Baratheon comrades with swords in hand. The men of Dragonstone had no chance to defend themselves, surprised and surrounded. With hideous suddenness the men with sigils of swordfish and seahorses cut them down.

Lyle's grip on the rock slackened and he almost fell. _No_ , he thought, numb and terrified, _no, Mother give us mercy, no…_

Amidst the bloody slaughter the bastard of Driftmark was shouting orders. "Jon! Go to the Windwyrm and pick up more of our men. Kill any Baratheons or Farrings you see. Fast as you can, don't let them get organised. Tom! Take your men and secure the armoury, and keep a watch on Sea Dragon Tower. Don't try to kill all the Imp's cocksuckers, we'll do that later, but I don't want any Lannisters getting their hands on weapons." _There are survivors from the Battle of King's Landing here, all kept in the same tower, unarmed_ , Lyle realised with a lurch in his stomach. _Lady Selyse did see betrayal, but her mistrust was in the wrong place._ "Androw! Put men inside each of the entrances to the Stone Drum, except from Exile's Tower. Hold them as long as you can until Jon's men can reinforce you. Take it then."

Parties of men with red-dripping swords rushed into the castle with each command. Waters turned back towards Lyle.

"You stupid fucking peasant, you brought word early," he snarled. "Now if you have half the wits the Father gave a mouse, _run_."

Aurane Waters and the last of his band of traitors disappeared inside the gate.

Lyle leant wearily against the sharp dark stone, his hands bleeding. Prince Tommen was his charge, assigned to him by the Lord Regent, and both Prince Tommen and himself would be best served by running. House Chyttering, House Bar Emmon and House Velaryon had all betrayed Lady Selyse Baratheon. House Celtigar had betrayed her long ago, and House Sunglass's men had not yet arrived. Only House Farring and her own Dragonstone men remained true, and they were being taken by surprise. The king and his cousin were as good as dead already. If Lyle went up there, all that it would do was kill him.

The best leader of men he had ever served under had given him the highest honour anyone had ever bestowed on him. He had sworn a vow.

 _Mayhaps I don't have half the wits the Father gave a mouse_ , Lyle thought. _I'm going anyway._

It was forty feet up, but getting down to reach the horses was further than that. He had to go onward. Gritting his teeth, Lyle grasped for handholds and pulled himself up with all his strength. No man could walk here; the slope was not quite sheer straight up, but it was closer kin to that than to a level surface. Many times he cut his palms and fingers on the jagged jutting rock, and had to wipe them where he could, so that his hands did not slip on his own blood. Worse, Dragonmount was treacherous. Twice he put his weight upon a handhold or foothold that suddenly gave way, leaving him flailing to grab anything he could to stop himself from falling.

It was cruel work, bloody, and frustratingly slow. Every moment he had to stop himself from thinking of his king and the loyal men in the castle, being murdered by Waters's band of traitors. They were threatened, true, but it would not give them any succour if he fell. He needed every ounce of concentration. At last his bleeding fingers grasped and clutched and pulled, and his torso collapsed forward onto the patch of carved-flat rock in front of the gate. The ground was littered with dead men.

"Take my hand."

 _Father Above, no._ He knew that voice far too well.

Lyle swung up his legs, then stood unaided at the edge. All his limbs were exhausted and his bloody hands were screaming. "What are you doing here?" he demanded of Prince Tommen. "It is perilous. There are traitors near. Ride away; we'll meet at the foot of Dragonmount, or if I don't, take the bag of gold and flee."

Tommen said, "No."

"My prince, this is for your safety. Go. Now. _Go_."

"I'm not leaving you, Ser Lyle," the trampled prince said stubbornly. "You're coming for Joffy and our cousin, aren't you? Joffy's awful, but he's my brother still, a Baratheon, and so is my cousin, and Grandfather says a man can't let his blood get hurt or his House is worth nothing at all."

Lyle's first instinct was to decline; he certainly would not take the prince into danger, whatever the late Lord Tywin said about Houses. Then it occurred to him to wonder whether Tommen would be safer alone, even temporarily, as a child prince in an island full of traitors, or with a knight of the Kingsguard.

"Fuck me with a rusty axe," he muttered. "Stay close."

They got on the horse.

The great gate was open and abandoned. Aurane Waters had not closed it after the slaughter here, probably to allow for Chyttering reinforcements. Holding the heir to the Iron Throne, Lyle rode the grey mare over a company of cooling corpses into the Conqueror's castle.

The front yard was deserted by the living and crowded by the dead, most of them wearing Baratheon and Farring surcoats. _House Farring remains true. That is some blessing at least—not quite all of Dragonstone's vassals have turned traitor._ The traitors' men, it appeared, had moved on to fights further inside. Lyle glanced around. There were three towers he could see at the outer walls. Metallic clangs and shouts were coming from two. The third was as silent as the grave. There was a sept wrought of glittering black stone and a surpassingly lovely garden, neither of whose names he knew, but their beauty was tarnished; the windows of the sept were broken, filling the floor with thousands of fragments of stained glass of ever-so-slightly different shades, and the red in the garden came now from blood as much as roses.

A great tower stood at the centre of the castle, taller than any of the others, in place of what should have been a keep in an ordinary Westerosi castle: doubtless what Waters had called the Stone Drum. He could hear the sounds of battle from its upper levels. It looked more defensible than the rest of Dragonstone, and was probably the royal family residence, but Lyle recalled what the bastard of Driftmark had ordered. It would be too heavily guarded. There were walkways from the three outer towers, but two of those were still full of fighting soldiers—the noise told it—and the third was so far away that he would have to run all the way around the Stone Drum, and would probably be seen. There appeared only one hope. Lyle saw a huge black dragon lying on its belly, so vast that it made any dragon that ever lived seem as a pygmy. It was a hall made of the same glittering dark stone, like starry night, which made up so much of this place, and, though it was far, he would not have to go all around the Stone Drum to reach it. He was not sure, but the way the dragon's tail rested against the Stone Drum made it look like it might contain a passage, to rescue the young king and his betrothed and take them away to as safe a place as could be found in treason-blighted Westeros.

Or, of course, it might be solid stone.

There was no time for doubt. Lyle dismounted from the mare—she was no war-trained destrier—and ran into the mouth of the black dragon. Four mailed men were waiting there with surcoats of blue swordfish on silver and white. He put his sword through one man's face before the man had even noticed he was there; with the force of a charging bull, he barrelled over another, breaking several bones. His ribs ached, but that did not stop him from stepping back, pulling out his sword and exchanging a series of blows with the last two Bar Emmon men. Parry, feint, lunge, stab… they had some grasp of form and footwork, but it was deficient, and the sheer strength behind Lyle's blows rattled their arms. A minute later, both were dead, and so was the wounded man on the ground, put out of his misery.

Prince Tommen's eyes were wide with amazement. "How do I do that, ser?"

"Those poor bastards were young men, green as grass, and I'm bested by the likes of Jaime Lannister; and I got them by surprise," Lyle said curtly. "There's the lesson. Now come on."

The hall inside the dragon was a graveyard. There had once been tables here and a fine high seat; those had been hacked to pieces, and shards of plates mingled with the bodies of dead guests and servants. It was full of the freshly dead, and, unlike elsewhere, many of them were Bar Emmon or Velaryon. _It was hard-fought here_ , he realised. _The traitors here didn't come upon the loyal men with such surprise._ The inside of this building was shaped more like an ordinary hall, but Lyle knew how the outside was shaped; unless they were purely decorative, solid stone, there ought to be ways into the dragon's wings and legs and tail. He started looking for passages in the sides of the hall that might lead to the tail and hence the upper Stone Drum which it lay upon. Moments later, his eyes fell upon a door, in the right place that it could lead to where he sought. Lyle had no time to hesitate. He dashed to it, tried to pull it open, failed to turn the handle, hacked it open and went through. Prince Tommen followed. That turned out to lead to a dark, dank spiral staircase that went up and up and up…

…to open air that struck his face as a cold blast. His head poked out of a trapdoor on the roof of the dragon hall. The top of the Stone Drum loomed a long way above him; he heard it before he saw it, from the enraged shouts and metallic clashes of battle.

 _Crone curse me witless_ , he thought, _that was the wrong passage!_ "Come down, my prince," Lyle said, and started to descend the staircase. When Prince Tommen made no move, he barked, "Come down!"

Tommen pointed, trembling. "Look."

He looked. Somewhere at or around the very highest level, a girl had burst out onto a balcony of glittering black stone shaped like a young dragon's wing. She was near the prince's age, the nominal Lady of Dragonstone, a panicked graceless child with big ears and a half-grey face and long black hair that flowed over a dress of white and blue.

 _Lady Shireen. The king's cousin, and the prince's._ Tommen's eyes had never left her.

"They're killing one another!" she cried over the sounds of steel and screams. "Everyone's gone mad! Someone make it stop! Someone—"

The arrow took her in the chest.

She stood still, for a moment, mouth opening. Red welled out over the white of her dress. Then her legs collapsed beneath her, and she fell.

Lady Shireen tumbled face-first off the balcony, tumbled and tumbled, over and over, her dress streaming, the wind playing in her hair.

Lyle closed the trapdoor to spare his charge the final horror of the crunch. In the darkness of the staircase he hissed, "We are going now."

"We _can't_!" Tommen was distraught, babbling. "She fell, you have to pick her up, we can't go without them, we have to save them…"

" _They're dead_! The traitors have already chased them to the top of the tallest tower; they can't go further. Your cousin is dead, your brother too, or else he will be within minutes, and so will be you unless you run."

Lyle darted back down the stairs and re-entered the black dragon hall, silent and full of corpses. He fled out the dragon's mouth and crossed the front courtyard, reaching the main gate. Beyond the gate, crows were already pecking at the bodies of the good true men he had watched Aurane Waters slay. The gate was still unattended, but either the dapple grey horse had bolted from the noise of war or somebody had stolen her.

He swore. "We're walking, then."

And so they did. Lyle had no strength to run. His every muscle ached with overuse and no matter how many times he wiped them clean his tormented hands were badly bleeding. It felt as though he could not possibly go on… but he and he alone stood between Prince Tommen Baratheon and all who would harm him. He went on.

On he walked, for a long while, almost to the foot of the mountain, until Prince Tommen pointed up the slope of Dragonmount and said, "Look," and he saw a party of men on horseback, hundreds of feet above them. The castle was secured. Now they were coming for the rest of Dragonstone. And some of them were looking down and had seen Lyle and Tommen, here on Dragonmount, at a time when almost nobody would want to be.

"Father damn them all," Lyle growled. "Changed my mind. _Run_."

The prince tried to keep up with him, but those legs were too short. Lyle had to pick up the plump boy and forced himself onwards. His legs howled; his chest screamed; his heart hammered like the hooves of a galloping horse; his arms felt like they were going to burst from their sockets. This was no mere weariness that would be righted by a night's sleep, or a dozen nights. He was breaking himself. Lyle knew the gods had blessed him with greater strength than they had given most men, but they had not made even him able to withstand this. He had done too much today, far too much.

 _Come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe._

What else could he do? He went on.

He needed to get Prince Tommen off this godsforsaken island full of treachery, and for that he needed a boat, but at the foot of Dragonmount he went west, not east to the town of Dragonsport or any settlement near it. There were too many traitor soldiers there, and Aurane Waters knew his face. One of the little fishing villages in the west of the island would serve to save his charge's life.

Onward he ran, on and on and on. The prince felt like a lump of lead bearing him down. His faint hope that all of the men coming from the castle would go to Dragonsport was unsurprisingly unanswered. Some did, but most spread out elsewhere. On horseback, and not near as exhausted as Lyle was, dozens of them pursued him, under a Bar Emmon leaping blue swordfish banner. Lyle took pride in his skill at arms, but he did not delude himself into believing that he stood a chance against a force like that. The only recourse was escape.

As his straining limbs cried out at him, he sped up to a sprint, moving as fast as he possibly could. He had got most of the way. A tiny village was very near now. The Bar Emmon men were making up ground fast but right now they were a thousand yards behind. He could get Prince Tommen off this island alive. He could. He would. He had to.

Then he saw that the village was almost deserted.

The sight hit like a hammer to his hopes. The villagers were terrified. By now they might well have heard of the massacres elsewhere. They were fisherfolk, accustomed to fierce sudden storms. To survive this storm of battle and betrayal on land, they had taken to their boats and fled to wait it out at sea.

Lyle fell to his knees. Tommen clutched his shoulders and sobbed in wordless fear. For all the horror of the nightmarish time since Lord Tywin had died, and of today especially, he had not felt such an acute sense of hopelessness.

It was the end, and he had failed.

"Father Above, judge me justly," he prayed as death drew closer to him on the hooves of warhorses. "Reward me according to the measure of my virtues and punish me according to the measure of my sins…"

And then he saw it. One small boat had not yet gone too far from the shore. It was a fishing boat with three men—by their looks, likely brothers—and their wives and brood of children, crammed with what looked like a sizeable amount of their earthly possessions. _They must have been afraid of looters. Soldiers tend to do that._ They were only a hundred feet away, albeit getting further. If they stopped, he and the prince could reach them.

With an effort like lifting a mountain, Lyle rose to his feet. He waded into the water, followed by the prince. It was yet another sudden pain; in addition to the fury of his legs, the sea of Blackwater Bay in an autumn's night was ice-cold. "Stop!" He plucked a gold dragon from the bag that was tied to his belt, the bag that had once been Lord Tywin's allowance for Prince Tommen. "I'll pay you!"

"That ain't worth my life!" one of the fishermen yelled back. They kept rowing.

"I'll pay you more!" Lyle did not stop wading. He had to reach inside his cloak to take out a whole handful of gold and silver coins. To a poor smallfolk family, even one gold dragon was a huge sum; this was a fortune.

Two of the brothers exchanged glances. One hollered back, "Only if we gettin' it all!"

 _Father curse his greed._ They would need that money, but what choice did they have? "Done! Now stop!"

He waded as far as he could, then took a deep breath and plunged himself under the water. It was like rubbing ice against burnt skin. His whole body shuddered. Fighting his own weight and the weight of the coins, he pushed himself to the boat.

Lyle's head emerged from the surface, gasping. He grasped a hand from one of the fishermen and allowed himself to be pulled aboard. His clothes were sodden through, and the cold was biting. When the fisherman reached for the gold straight after pulling him up, Lyle barked, "Help him in first!"

He looked behind him.

"Oh holy Seven, no." In the leap from the pit of despair to exultant hope, he had not thought to wonder: _I didn't know whether Prince Tommen can swim._

Lyle took a deep breath and dived back into the sea. He dared not leave the gold with the fishermen, else they would go off without him. This time he did not fight his weight and the weight of the coins; swiftly they dragged him down. The world became dark and cold, and even as it did he was still forcing his oppressed limbs to keep swimming, back towards the shore. He crawled about on the sea floor, opening new wounds on his arms and legs from the jagged rocks. He had lost so much blood. The world seemed distant and blurry. A strange new sense of warmth was spreading in place of the cold.

 _There!_ At last his hands found what they were seeking: the touch of soft skin. He grasped, hard, and pulled, and kicked the water, pushing himself up with every effort he could force from his legs, every effort of his will. But they did not feel fiery, straining and screaming now. They felt almost like they were not his at all, cool, insubstantial, foggy, far away.

He turned around and pulled the boy along the sea floor, away from the shore. That, at least, he could do. His lungs felt burning, but that pain had to vie for attention against the rest of his pain, and all of it was fading. Several times he tried to push himself upward with all the strength that he could muster, all the strength of the man whom men called Strongboar. But his body felt heavy as a mountain, and his limbs felt weak as a child. It was too much for him.

The bag of coins was still at his belt and his fingers kept an iron grip on the boy. Could he rise if he were to let go of either? Without the bag, the fishermen would leave him, and anyway he doubted that he had the dexterity, now, to undo the knot that tied it to him. Without the boy… No. No. _No._

 _I must not give up_ , Lyle told himself. _I must not fail. He will die if I fail._

 _I made a promise._

He gathered the last dregs of his strength, kicked down against the cruel cold water, pushed hard, pushed up with his arms and legs, hoping, praying that it would be enough, propelling, lifting himself off the rocks…

…and could not sustain it. His legs faltered. He was falling in the dark and the cold.

That was when he knew he was going to die.

Before he hit the floor again, something strangely hot gripped him painfully tightly. He could see nothing and hear nothing. It dragged him somewhere, some sea creature, its watery lair. He remained curiously relaxed. He was going to die anyway. He wondered whether this was what it was like to be eaten by a dragon—

—then sudden shock of sensation flooded through him. He had never before felt so grateful to feel cold wind strike his face.

They helped him onto their family boat, him and the boy whom his fingers were still clutching. Somebody thumped him; he coughed and spluttered out a mouthful of seawater and took deep, shuddering breaths. He was utterly spent; twitching a finger felt beyond him. His salted cuts stung at him, and his clothes were soaked through, piercing him with a dagger of cold. But he lived yet, and so did his charge.

"There you are," said one of the fishermen, looking down at him with satisfaction. "You ain't dyin' without givin' us that gold."


	9. Chapter 9

**SANSA**

The glittering host left King's Landing in the glow of morning sunshine. Sansa rode through the Dragon Gate on a sweet-tempered grey mare, familiar to her; some kindly soul had found her old mount in the royal stables. With wagons of supplies and an army of men afoot, the horsemen could not ride at breakneck pace, so she had time to keep glancing backward. The high walls of pale red granite and the soldiers streaming through the gate stopped her from seeing the city men at work, but she could hear them. The ring of hammers and the shouts of taskmasters mingled with the grunts of labourers lifting wood and stone. New houses were rising amidst the wreckage of the old. The scars of the Battle of King's Landing on the substance of the capital were healing.

Other scars were not. Sansa wished the pace were faster. No matter that Renly ruled it now, to her this would always be Joffrey's city, the place where that cruel boy had delighted in the murder of her father and the ruin of her dreams. She hoped never to return here.

While Sansa, as a royal ward, rode near to the king, not all of his host followed him along the kingsroad. Among the last of the soldiers to go through the Dragon Gate, a company of mounted men went somewhat to the right of the kingsroad, and a smaller company, also ahorse, went to the left of it. Both had many standards flying, but, excluding the crowned stag of Baratheon that pranced above all, the one in highest honour for the group on the right was the black and yellow striped banner of House Beesbury, while House Shermer's copper nails flew above the left company.

 _Both Reachlords_ , Sansa noted, _and Branston Cuy in King's Landing is a Reachman too. King Renly prefers to have his own stormlanders with him, as many as he can, for his campaign against Lord Tywin._ She supposed there must be some significance in that.

When all those who would depart from the city had done so, Renly Baratheon wheeled about on his fine white horse and rode to meet his lords commander. In this sunlight the king's green plate armour shone as brilliantly as the gold antlers of his helm, so resplendent that it hurt her eyes to look at him. But Sansa knew it was adornment. Beneath the exquisite gilding there was only steel.

"I entrust to you a great responsibility, my Lord of Honeyholt," the king said clearly, loud enough to be heard from where Sansa was. "The crownlander lords to the north of the river Blackwater have shown little of the troth that they pledged to my dear departed brother Robert. They have forgotten their loyalty." A flash of perfect teeth. "Remind them."

Warryn Beesbury bowed his blond-maned head. "Your will be done, Your Grace."

Renly acknowledged that, then turned. "My Lord of Smithyton, you too are entrusted with a task. Most of the crownlanders to the south of the river have acknowledged their rightful king, but the lords of Massey's Hook seem to believe that their sheer distance from Storm's End and from King's Landing permits them to plot treason without fear of justice. They will learn from you, my lord, that it does not. I charge you to lead your host to Massey's Hook and return the bannermen of Dragonstone to the king's peace."

Perestan Shermer, an ageing man once as handsome as his Rainbow Guard son, inclined his head to the king. "Your Grace honours me."

"I do." The king turned to his men. "As we speak, the bastard usurper's hirelings are tormenting my people. For that, my friends, what shall we serve them?"

The ground trembled beneath the stamping of boots. " _Death_!" roared fifty-thousand voices from fifty-thousand throats. " _Death to lions_! _Death to lions_! _Renly, Renly, Renly king, Renly king_!"

Renly Baratheon basked in their regard, permitting it to go on for a long while. At last he raised his right hand, a short simple gesture. Thus at once fell silence.

"So be it. We make our way northward, with all haste. We've a lion to catch."

And so they did.

'All haste' for an army of this size, Sansa discovered, was not very hasty. Many of the king's men were not mounted, and the wagons that bore their provender were slower still. She would not complain. Lord Tywin Lannister had to take a host of foot with him too; and if what she had heard at King Renly's court was anywhere in the vicinity of truth, Lord Tywin's host was pitifully paltry next to the unfathomable immensity of this one.

Lord Perestan led his soldiers away, turning around to cross the river. Every man of them was ahorse. This smallest host soon disappeared from Sansa's sight behind the city. The other, Lord Warryn's, following the Rosby road, was and would remain visible. It comprised thousands, she was sure. How many thousands? She could not say. To Sansa's inexperienced eyes, it did not look much smaller than the host that Kevan Lannister had led to King's Landing ere Joffrey was dethroned.

The morning sun caressed the gorgeous colours of the standards and surcoats of Lord Warryn's host and danced upon their steel helmets as they rode. Yet the greater army from which they had come did not seem diminished. Nigh the totality of King Renly's host, foot and horse alike, remained at his side—so many that Sansa could not perceive a noticeable difference.

For most hosts, to send away as mighty a company as Lord Warryn's would have been a substantial commitment of the host's strength. For King Renly's host, it was a detachment.

The touch of fear, like ice-cold water dripping down her back, had become a familiar feeling. _Don't let Robb fight him_ , she prayed, to old gods, new, whichever god would heed her. _Let him understand that some wars can't be won. Let my brother live. Please._

Onward they rode along the kingsroad.

It was a ghost of the journey she had taken on the same road, going the other way. In some sense it was eerily similar. Sansa was given every comfort. She dined well every night; the king was generous with the bounty of Highgarden. When they set up camp by the side of the kingsroad at nights, she slept on a feather mattress in a green pavilion that was never distant from the king's. There were amiable servants all around her, cheerful and courteous, to attend her every need. There was none of the hostility with which she had been treated since the Lannisters turned against her lord father and made the Starks their foes.

Only, she knew that she was still a captive. As kind as Renly and his court may be to her, there were to be no sunlit rides away from camp at her leisure, not only for fear of enemy soldiers. She would not be let free to leave her place at the heart of the Baratheon host. King Renly kept many times more soldiers at his side than old King Robert had. And for all that these southerners spoke her more gently than the court of Joffrey and his westermen, they were not northmen. They were not and would never be her people. Three Starks had come south on this road, herself and Arya and her lord father. Two were gone. The Lannisters had killed her father, and Arya… Arya… could she…? No. She must face the truth. Likely they had murdered Arya too, on the day they took the Red Keep, and left her dead in a gutter somewhere in the hope that none would know of their sin. Not even Jeyne Poole had been spared; she had disappeared from Sansa's chamber one day, never to be seen again. When Sansa had asked about Jeyne, the king had sent forth his men to search, and afterward he had told her with pity that, among the captives held by the Lannisters, there were none who answered to that name.

Three Starks had come south from Winterfell. One lived to go north again, alone, to a castle sacked and despoiled. No illusion cast by royal splendour could conceal that.

One morning, near a fortnight after his host left King's Landing, the king and queen gathered their lords and well-born knights to their side ere they set out on the road. Ladies, too. There were many highborn women of the stormlands and the Reach here, as well as Queen Margaery, having come all the way from Highgarden where the king had had his coronation.

They met on a patch of smooth earth where the royal pavilion, now uprooted for the march, had stood at night. Beneath a blue sky dotted with white wool-like clouds, finely dressed ladies gleamed in gowns of every colour, brandishing husbands on their arms. Many were fair, but none could outshine Margaery Baratheon, who shimmered in silvery lace so delicate that it looked like it would not stand to a harsh gust of wind. She stood straight-backed and confident, meeting the eyes of any, at her leisure, fearless. It had been a long time since Sansa had borne herself like that.

By contrast to the queen's dazzling dress, the man on her arm appeared drab. Clad in black velvet and strangely solemn, King Renly was armed but unarmoured. He had to appear as a man of battle, Sansa thought, though he did not need the reality of it. Why would he? Who of his enemies could get this far? There was nothing to fear in the midst of the mightiest army in the world.

Renly Baratheon had no raised platform, but he was tall and broad, and all who had not already been regarding him turned when they heard their king's strong voice. "We shall resume the march shortly, my friends. Fear not on that account," he told them. "Two riders reached us last night, with tidings that ought to be shared with you. Some are sweet, others bitter."

The lords and ladies of the south exchanged glances.

"We are your devoted servants, Your Grace," declared a young knight whose name Sansa did not know. "Not even the miserable defeat on the Blackwater sufficed to break our loyalty, and we went on to fight and win the Battle of King's Landing in your royal name afterward. Bitter as these tidings may be, I believe I speak for us all when I say we will serve you faithfully despite them."

A chorus of "Aye" rang out from around the clearing.

"You are admirable, my leal friends," the king said, blinking as if to thwart tears. "Would that all the realm were so. Very well. The first rider came from Lord Warryn at Duskendale. He informs us that Renfred Rykker has opened his gates and warmly welcomed our valiant comrades in arms with a great banquet, toasting their honour and the victory they won at King's Landing. Lord Renfred has offered his apologies for his absence there—I'm told he spoke of Rosby and Stokeworth, the bastard usurper's allies in the crownlands, standing in the way between Duskendale and the capital—and pledged his allegiance to our cause."

A cheer arose from among the gathered men and women. "Hail Renly!" they shouted, and "Renly, Renly king!"

Still, it was less hearty than one might have expected for tidings as sweet as these. The surrender of Rosby and Stokeworth had been expected. The elderly Lord of Rosby and the even older Lady of Stokeworth were both hostages in the capital, kept in good comfort but by watchful guards as price for their loyalty to Joffrey. House Rykker of Duskendale, strong and thus far uninvolved, was another matter indeed. The northern crownlands were falling into King Renly's hands like a pear so ripe it broke off at a slight touch of its tree.

That gain was another iron nail in the coffin of House Lannister… but all of them were awaiting Renly's other tidings, those that he had said were bitter.

"The other rider," said the king, "came from Lord Branston at King's Landing. He spoke of a raven from Sunspear." There was a sharp intake of breath. "Prince Doran says he has finished conferring with his advisers on the matter of the bastard girl the Imp deposited in his hands."

Ser Donnel Swann, the broad and burly heir to Stonehelm, stepped forth. "It should be no shock that the Dornish prove perfidious," he proclaimed. "We of the marches know that well. We have fought them many times before. Their dishonour is no shame on you, Your Grace. Give the word and we'll send them scurrying back to their deserts!"

Some of the younger men and the marcher lords cheered at this lustily and loudly, but most of the lords and ladies were silent. Grim resolve was more in evidence than eagerness. If the Dornish truly marched against the king, this war might be much prolonged.

"Your boldness does you credit, Ser Donnel," Renly said, "but here it is unneeded. Prince Doran has decided not to declare for an abomination born of incest. There is history between House Martell and House Lannister. The bastard girl is being escorted to King's Landing as we speak by a party of armed men, led not by Prince Doran—for he pleads his gout—but by his brother the Red Viper, to pledge Dorne's spears to our cause. All that he asks in return is justice, and I would have given it to him regardless. Gregor Clegane, Amory Lorch and Tywin Lannister will all lose their heads, as they should have done sixteen years past. What manner of monsters in the shape of men are they, to murder a princess and even children?"

 _What? The Dornish are coming to_ join _him?_ Of all the things Sansa had expected the king might mean, that was not even on the list. Stormlanders and Reachmen had no love for Dornishmen, an enmity born of thousands of years of spilt blood, but surely they could not consider it bad news to gain such a powerful ally in the war.

The others seemed to be as confused as she was. "I beg Your Grace's pardon," said Robert Cordwayner, Lord of Hammerhal, "but none of those tidings are bitter."

Sorrow was written plainly on Renly's face. "I beg my lord's pardon. They are. My lady of Oakheart, I—"

Arwyn Oakheart interrupted him in a trembling voice. "Arys?"

 _Arys Oakheart._ Sansa remembered a courteous, comely young knight of the Kingsguard, Robert's as well as Joffrey's. He had nevertheless obeyed whenever Joffrey commanded him to hit her, but he had spoken her gently elsewise, which made him one of the least cruel of her tormentors. And she recalled the day of the great riot of the cityfolk of King's Landing, the day when Ser Arys had sailed away to Dorne with Princess Myrcella.

The king said, "I am sorry."

Sansa had never seen the short, slender, soft-spoken Lady Arwyn so enraged. "House Martell must be punished for this!"

Beside her, Lord Mathis Rowan put a hand on her shoulder. "My lady, the Prince of Dorne is pledging his spears to us. We dare not spit in his face. Be reasonable—"

Lady Arwyn twisted away from his hand. " _Reasonable_?!" she roared. "A pox on that! _They murdered my son_!"

"A son who served the usurper," said Randyll Tarly.

"As did many," Lady Arwyn retorted. "Does that justify murder? All the highborn westermen and crownlanders whom we took captive at King's Landing would disagree."

"The Whore of the West wouldn't," Lord Randyll said dismissively. "Alester Florent neither."

Before he finished speaking, Lady Arwyn said, "Arys's deeds were never half so heinous as—"

"Ser Arys was no Gyles Rosby. He didn't only serve the abomination to avoid death, isolated in King's Landing when the Lannisters seized the crown," said Ser Edwyd Fossoway. "He would be liberated and reunited with us if so. He swore his life to the bastard's false Kingsguard."

Soon all were speaking at once.

"As traitors deserve—"

"His Grace would have been more—"

"You heartless—"

The king's voice cut through the babble like an axe through ripe cheese. " _Enough_!"

There was a short silence.

When tempers had cooled and his bannermen were quietly awaiting his words, the king spoke. "It so happens that Ser Arys, ere his death, was told of my intention for the bastard girl whom he accompanied. He knew she was to be sent to the capital to join the silent sisters there, under my eye, that she may raise no more rebellion. He was told, too, of my command and his lady mother's that he must cease serving the bastard usurper. Both she and I wished that he return to King's Landing alive and enter the true king's service. Ser Arys refused those commands. He died to stop the bastard girl from being sent to us. Some consider the abominations pretty, I am told. Mayhaps that was the cause of it—"

" _You dare_ —?"

Renly's voice rose. " _Yes, I dare_! That is the best of your hopes, Lady Arwyn. For if that is not what I choose to believe, why, then I must believe that he defied your order because he was a cold-blooded traitor, serving the abomination Joffrey. Or, worse, that he did not defy you at all, that he was a faithful son, and that you deliberately pledged House Oakheart's strength to the rightful king whilst ordering your youngest son to serve the abomination, lacking all true loyalty, hoping to be favoured no matter who won the crown."

"Is that Your Grace's accusation?" Lady Arwyn found a whit of icy composure. "It's treason, then?"

"No." The king's voice quietened. "I don't wish to accuse you of that, unless you force my hand. You are gracious and noble, my lady; I don't believe you a traitor. I choose to believe that Ser Arys went against your wishes as well as my own, when he raised his sword and died faithless in defence of an abomination."

Whatever solace Arwyn Oakheart took in the king's forgiveness for herself was undone by the slight to her son. She looked around the clearing, seeking support from her fellow ladies and lords. She did not find it. Some, such as Ser Donnel Swann, seemed sympathetic but did not speak in favour of her. Most met her gaze with nothing but hardness in their eyes. Sansa judged they _did_ believe, and resented, that Lady Arwyn had wanted her son to fight for Joffrey against them, in order to have one foot in each camp.

The Lady of Old Oak quivered with scarce suppressed wrath, yet she dared not give voice to more defiance. Through gritted teeth she said, "With Your Grace's leave."

The king sighed. "My ladies, my lords, sers, you are granted it."

They marched on, for that day and other days. Lady Arwyn and her remaining sons did not dare to take House Oakheart's men away from the king's host. It was three days after that announcement, on another sunny morning, that the king and queen sent word for another gathering. The ladies and lords and highborn knights of the south congregated around the royal couple, who were surrounded by their companions, the queen's colourfully clad ladies-in-waiting and the king's even more colourfully clad knights of the Rainbow Guard.

"Welcome, my friends," said the king, favouring them with a dazzling smile. "I shan't keep you long. We have a sweet tiding indeed." He turned to his wife. "Margaery my sweet?"

Every eye in the clearing fell upon the queen. She was brown of hair and brown of eye, slim and pretty, and it occurred to Sansa how young she was. _Maiden be kind, she's no older than Robb._

Despite that, there was not the least tremor or hesitation in Queen Margaery's voice when she said, "I've had two moons pass without my moon blood."

A moment's pause, to comprehend—then all the knights and lords and ladies were calling and competing to be heard. The king and queen stood there for a while, smiling, taking in the exclamations of delight, until the queen said, "Thank you all for your well-wishes. My husband's faithful Maester Jurne will give me and the babe the best of care, as befits the heir to the crown of the Seven Kingdoms."

"This babe is a blessing to us," said the king. "Whether a boy or girl, it makes no matter; the babe will be cherished all the same. If it is a princess not a prince, what need we fear? There's time. The queen and I are not, I hope, _too_ ancient."

A gale of laughter swept the assembled men and women. One of the younger knights had the temerity to shout "You soon will be!" and there was more laughter, led by Renly himself.

"By the child I bear, a bond has been sealed between the Reach and the Iron Throne," said Queen Margaery. "The bond of Tyrell and Baratheon has expelled the bastard Joffrey from his ill-gotten power and is restoring order to the Seven Kingdoms. Let it never be forgotten."

Her lord father's bannermen cried out in approval. "Never forgotten!" they shouted, and cries of "Hail the queen!" and "Hail the king!" were mixed with those of "Renly, Renly king!" and "Tyrell, Tyrell, Tyrell!"

"Never let our bond be broken, indeed," the king said when the shouting died away. "For all that, however, don't for a moment think that I've forgotten the proud and valiant lords of my ancestral land, who have rendered good service to me and my kingly brother before me. Long have you fought for my family, deposing the Mad King, crushing Stannis of Dragonstone when he defied King Robert's decree out of greed for a castle that never belonged to him, and driving out the abomination born of incest that slithered its slimy way onto my throne. House Baratheon could ask for no more faithful servants than yourselves. And to that end, I pledge to you what is most precious to me."

A curious murmur ran around the court.

"My brother Robert would have been a great king, if not that the Whore of the West poisoned his mind with ill counsel and sought to keep House Baratheon's true friends out of his court. That ends now," the king declared. "I mean to grant the title of Prince of Storm's End to my eldest son. When he is old enough, there he will rule over all of the stormlands as your liege, living around you and listening to you, till he passes the stormlands to his own son when I walk the Stranger's hall. Henceforth, my leal stormlords, as long as my line rules the Seven Kingdoms, you and your heirs will always be close to the king."

The stormlords were plainly delighted. A dozen different cries rang out, but one soon swallowed up the others and came from every stormlander throat:

" _Our king_! _Our king_!" the stormlanders hailed their liege whom they had made something more. " _Our king_!"

Renly and Margaery Baratheon walked among their bannermen and spoke with them, hearing their congratulations and listening to their extravagant praise and thanking them for their valour, counsel and leal service. The king found time for each, and favoured each with his beaming smiles, the kind that lit up the world around his handsome face and made whoever saw it feel as if they were the most important person in the world to him. The proud and noble lords and ladies jostled for space near the king and queen like cityfolk watching a tourney. Arwyn Oakheart stood aside, unmoved, but Sansa looked at the others and saw that Lady Arwyn was alone in her sentiment. Sansa had no notion of whether the king making Storm's End a royal fief, the seat of the heir to the Iron Throne, was truly so advantageous for the lords and ladies of the stormlands, but she realised it did not matter. What mattered was that, when Renly Baratheon had spoken of it, the wizardry of his words had made it seem like a great favour for them, and they had believed in it. Lady Arwyn would be disappointed if she tried to find allies for her grudge against the king. No matter House Oakheart's anger, the lords and ladies of the south loved well the king that they had made, and they fully intended to finish the task of destroying his foes.

In honour of the little prince or princess, all the men had been granted greater rations for today's dinner, at the queen's command. The march on that day was swift, driven by anticipation. When they set up camp for the night, the soldiers caroused in good cheer, and Sansa saw many toasts to the queen, the king and the royal babe.

That evening, before supper, Sansa disturbed the men whom the king had commanded to guard her. "I must visit the queen," she said, "to pay my respects."

Four armoured southerners walked with her towards the queen, though there could surely be no threat here, in the heart of King Renly's power. They passed many other soldiers on the way, and were waved through without hassle. It did not take long for her to reach a great green pavilion above which the black crowned stag of Baratheon pranced across a golden banner.

Two of the Rainbow Guard waited outside it, wearing cloaks of green and blue. The green knight she could understand. Ser Cortnay Penrose had been raised to the Rainbow Guard after the death of three of its sworn brothers, fighting for the king during the Clash of the Stags. The blue knight had been part of the Rainbow Guard for even longer than Ser Cortnay, behind only Ser Robar Royce and Ser Parmen Crane the Lord Commander in length of service, and yet she was no knight at all, but a woman. How could a woman be sworn to an order rooted in the Kingsguard, even a woman who was mannishly tall? Sansa was curious as to how that was possible, but held her tongue. Brienne of Tarth may not be a knight but she undoubtedly _was_ a highborn lady, and Sansa feared that she might take offence if she were asked that question.

Lady Brienne stepped forward with her sword in hand. "What is your purpose here, my lady?"

"To give my well-wishes to the queen," Sansa said.

A voice from inside called: "Let her in."

"Then pass," said Lady Brienne. "You only."

Leaving her guards outside, Sansa opened a flap of the royal pavilion. She unlaced her boots and left them in the outer segment, then pushed another flap to come inside. There was no sign of the king; all of those within were women.

"Do take a seat," the queen said briskly, taking Sansa's arm and ushering her to an ornate maple-wood chair, waving away her maidservants. "Have you supped yet?"

"No, Your Grace," said Sansa.

"Splendid. Bess, run along now, tell the cook we'll have suckling pig, portions for two." A girl bobbed her head and ran from the tent. "Danelle, do be a dear and pour some wine for us. Dry red, I should think, from the lower Mander. Not those Dornish sorts—they're far too sour—and Arbour wine, well, the quality is not in doubt, but I prefer to have some variety and it _is_ rather overused nowadays." In what seemed no time at all, Sansa found herself holding a glass. The queen was sipping at hers merrily.

Sansa struggled to keep up. "Your Grace, I don't wish to disturb your meal with the king."

"Renly? Oh no, you need not worry on that account. He's cloistered with a gaggle of lords, speaking of strategies. Men often are. You'll have to get used to that, I'm afraid. No, the two I spoke of for dinner are you and I."

"Thank—thank you for the honour—"

"You're most welcome," the queen said, "and you're welcome to return here. You are, after all, the Lord of Winterfell's sister, and the daughter of our dearly beloved late lord Hand. It's fitting that you should be treated according to that station."

Speaking to the queen, Sansa decided, was like speaking to a hurricane. You could not grip it, you would just get carried away, and it spat things out at great speed at unforeseen moments. She settled for "Your Grace is very kind", which sounded safe.

"It's good of you to say so." Queen Margaery took another sip. "I hope you like the wine."

"I do, Your Grace." It was excellent wine, Sansa admitted to herself, though very strong; it made her feel warm and ungraceful. She was glad that she still had her chair.

"And your pavilion? As comfortable as you could wish?"

"Oh yes."

That line of questioning continued. All of this had grown decidedly out of control. When Queen Margaery paused to give a kind word to one of her maidservants, bringing in a lovely tender piece of pork that made Sansa's mouth water, Sansa seized the opportunity to say: "I came to congratulate Your Grace on the conception of the royal babe."

"That," said Queen Margaery. "Yes, I thought so. Thank you for your courtesy. _That_ deed was not so difficult as to deserve congratulations, only tedious."

 _Mother's mercy!_ Sansa flushed.

"You do turn such a pretty shade of pink. It's quite endearing. Had you not given much thought to the matter before? It _is_ part of a lady's duties."

"I—I—I didn't—" Sansa groped for words like a blind woman. "My lady mother spoke to me a little," she at last resolved to say. "I thought the bedding was supposed to be pleasant."

"It is for some," the queen said. "Others call it painful. I found it neither; truth be told, it felt more messy and embarrassing than anything else. I suspect it may depend on who your husband is. Some men enjoy the deed greatly and lie with women whenever they can. Other men don't and need to be persuaded to partake in it. My kingly husband is one of the latter sort. Mayhaps it is different with the former."

Overwhelmed at last, words failed Sansa. She was so mortified that it was as if she was lost at sea.

There was a while's silence, during which both of them ate and drank and the queen studied her from above. Their seats were of similar craft, and the height difference between them was not too great, but Sansa felt it keenly.

"I tell you this because someone must," the queen said. "Your lady mother would speak to you of such things in the ordinary course of events, but regrettably, by Lannister treason, she cannot be with you now. That will be rectified as soon as Renly and I are able, I promise." _As soon as you are able if it serves your purposes_ , Sansa thought, although she was not fool enough to say it. "Till that happy hour, I hope that my company, here where your lady mother stayed, will serve in her place."

"My lady mother stayed here?" said Sansa.

"She did. Lady Catelyn came to speak to Renly when we were upon the roseroad, a while before the Clash of the Stags. In token of vengeance for your lord father's death, he promised her Queen Cersei's head, which is why the silent sisters have that little package you may have noticed—"

Sansa had noticed no such thing.

"—and she watched the tourney wherein Lady Brienne won her place in the Rainbow Guard, but that was it." She turned to one of her maidservants. "Cyrelle, open another bottle of this red. Yes, a whole bottle, I know the Lady Sansa and I won't finish it all. You can split the rest among yourselves afterward." After that jaw-dropping expensive offer, back to Sansa: "Little was gained, I fear. He made her an offer and she departed to convey it to your brother. Still, we were at the castle of Bitterbridge at the time, so my kingly husband granted her the use of this pavilion while he had no need of it. It can't have been much more than half a year past."

 _Half a year._ Sansa imagined her lady mother sitting where she now sat, brushing her hair, as Lady Catelyn had often done when she was small. Her heart ached with longing. It had been much more than half a year since she had seen her mother.

"I've made you melancholy," the queen observed, as Cyrelle poured them both more drink to go with the last of the pork. "I am sorry for that. You'll speak with her soon. Before then, I implore you, be free to ask aught that it please you to know from me."

Sansa listened intently. She did not trust Margaery Baratheon. She recalled well what had happened the last time she had trusted a queen. But if she were careful, mayhaps she could make use of her.

The queen invited her to dinner the next day as well. Sansa attended dutifully. The day after that, she was invited again. This time—the presence of the full Rainbow Guard outside the royal pavilion was a clue—it was not only the queen she supped with, but also the king.

It was more than a little daunting to be almost alone with the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Sansa pried as far as she dared, and between other, more innocuous questions she sought word of her brother. It was now clear that Robb had left the westerlands, she heard, and the king opined that he would have passed Riverrun weeks ago, but which direction had he gone in? Tidings were unclear. Some said north, to fight the ironborn. Some said east, to join with her uncle, Ser Edmure. Some said south, to march against the Reach and make war on House Tyrell. One merchant, she was told, had sworn in the name of the old gods and the new to the sentries of the king's host that Robb had not left the westerlands at all, and that he had led a huge host of a hundred-thousand wargs with slavering jaws to fall upon Casterly Rock.

The king was laughing at that account, saying that mayhaps there had been a huge host of a hundred-thousand cups of ale, when Ser Alyn Estermont of the Rainbow Guard burst into the pavilion, orange cloak fluttering about him. "Your Grace, a party of riders have come here, from Lord Branston in King's Landing. They wouldn't give this to any of the sentries or their captains, only to one of the Rainbow Guard, and they bade me this must be opened by none but you."

King Renly rose to his feet. "You've done well, coz. If I may…?"

A little sheepishly, Ser Alyn passed a letter to his king. Sansa saw a wax seal of six sunflowers, a row of three above a row of two above the last one. It was indeed the sigil of Lord Branston Cuy, and above the unbroken seal someone had hurriedly scrawled ' _FOR THE KING_ '.

The king broke the seal and unrolled a letter within. It was a long letter; she could see his dark blue eyes, so alike to old King Robert's, as they travelled down the page. Those eyes grew very wide. They flicked back to the top and went down again.

"Your Grace?" Ser Alyn said.

The king looked up at him. Shock, disgust and horror mingled on his face. "A terrible deed has been done," he said. "Even for vile traitors against the crown, I can scarce believe such blackest of dishonour to be possible …"

King Renly was the very picture of outrage. It would have been so very easy to believe it. Had they not seen, almost anybody would have done. But she had seen his face just before he looked up at his cousin, while he was reading Lord Branston's letter for the second time. It had lasted for a fraction of a moment, and it was utterly different from the wide beaming grins he bestowed so freely on his followers, only the faintest twitch of lips… but it was unmistakeably the pale shadow of a smile.


	10. Chapter 10

**TYRION**

Tyrion's throat felt dry as bone. "You are certain?"

"As certain as I can be, my lord," the westerman said. "I wasn't there on the day itself, thanks be to the Mother. We docked at Dragonsport the day after. But the tales they told me fitted with what I saw. They're digging shallow pits near Dragonsport, hundreds of them, mayhaps thousands. There are heads on spikes at the castle that weren't there before. And above the heads they're flying new standards: a swordfish, stripes, a seahorse, and a black stag alone on its banner. The stag above them all."

Everybody in the pavilion knew the significance of that. _Renly's banner, not Joffrey's._ That lone stag crushed underfoot any gasping, shuddering remnant of doubt.

"I see," Lord Tyrion said. "Leave me."

There were bows, murmurs, and then he was alone.

Tyrion collapsed into his seat, shaking. _Mother isn't here any more_ , the tearful boyish voice repeated in his thoughts. _Nor Father, that awful oaf, he hit Mother, I'm glad he's dead… nor Uncle Jaime. Nor Grandfather, who she always said would keep me safe if she's gone. He's many miles away, and never went to save me in King's Landing. But you're a Lannister, you're my uncle too, but not like Baratheon uncles, Mother said, ambitious, they hate me, they envy me, they have claims to crowns of their own. Lannisters can be trusted. Will you keep me safe now?  
_  
Whatever else he had been, he had been a frightened boy. He had just lost his mother, on whose unwavering support his whole life had been built. He had been Jaime's son.

 _I will_ , Tyrion had said, with reluctance but without hesitation. _Because you are my blood._

That, it seemed now, had meant as little as any of his other oaths.

 _You could have saved me_ , another voice called to him. _You could have stopped this. Why didn't you come?  
_  
 _I wanted to come!_ he told his sister's restless shade. _I couldn't come! I had to save your son…_ Her son. The gods played japes on men, and liked to make them cruel.

Sweet Myrcella, looking down at him with more kindness than he had ever seen in her mother's identical eyes. _Are they going to hurt me, Uncle?_

 _You'll be safer there than here_ , he had told the girl whom the Dornish were taking to Renly at this very moment.

Plump and harmless little Tommen, who had scarce the temperament to lift a wooden sword. _It's the prince, m'lord_ , the guardsman had said to him. _He vanished, same day as Lord Tywin fell. No-one knows nothin' where 'e's gone._ Except, of course, the traitors who had murdered him and his grandfather.

And the unkindest cut of all: _One flesh, one heart, one soul… Look at her. Look. At. Her…_

 _You didn't help me_ , mocked his brother, Jaime as Tyrion had last imagined him, filthy and despairing, imprisoned in his dreams. _You've failed all of us._

 _No_ , Tyrion thought. _You live yet. I have failed all the others. But I will not fail you._

"Mychel."

His steward re-entered the pavilion. "My lord?"

"See to it that Master Sebastion is compensated handsomely for his troubles." _Let it not be said that Lord Lannister doesn't pay his debts._ "And summon my bannermen. I would speak with them. Now."

The noble knights and lords of the westerlands trickled into the extravagant cloth-of-gold pavilion he had inherited from his lord father. Tyrion Onearm did not mingle among them. He was seated, whilst all of them had to stand, and as they entered they came to pay their respects to him one by one.

"Lest there be any of you who do not already know," Tyrion began when they were assembled, "a foul atrocity has been perpetrated on Dragonstone, contravening the laws of gods and men. Lady Selyse Baratheon, her daughter and her household have been murdered by treacherous slime that oozed between her walls, pretending to be her loyal men. The Rape of Dragonstone, men are calling it. Acting in service to the usurper Lord Renly of Storm's End, they broke their sworn word as guests beneath her roof and turned suddenly against their comrades, slaying thousands—to the sorrow of us all, including the king."

A frenzy of whispers and exclamations—"Good gods!" "Seven hells!" "Mother have mercy!" "Infamy!"—broke out among the westerlords as he spoke. It surprised Tyrion to hear how many did not know. His personal servants had done well; the tidings had not spread as far as he would have expected.

"A service for His Grace the King will be held by Septon Pearse on the morrow," Lord Tyrion said, "and I've no doubt that I will see you there. On that day we shall properly mourn His Grace and pray for his soul. It is not, however, for that purpose that I have called you here. Lord Renly Baratheon has now successfully murdered his brother, both of his goodsisters, both of his nephews and one of his nieces, and the other niece is being transferred to his custody, for which purpose it is not difficult to guess. The elder lines of House Baratheon, that of His Grace King Robert and that of Lord Stannis of Dragonstone, are being strangled by the usurper. As His Grace's loyal lords bannermen—" _and mine_ , he did not need to say— "it is fitting to hear your counsel as to our future course."

A dozen knights and lords raised their voices at once to speak, but one voice clear as cold water flowed highest of them all. "What of it?" spoke Richard Serrett the severe Lord of Silverhill, who oft reminded Tyrion of his lord father. "My lord, His Grace's death is tragic, to be sure, but it seems to me that, overall, the lay of the land is little-changed. We remain obliged to destroy the dagger at our back that is Lord Bolton's host and then to march westward. We remain obliged to either treat with or confront Lord Stark. And Lord Renly remains our enemy, with the strength of Storm's End and Highgarden aligned against Casterly Rock. So long as these remain true, our course is set."

"Yet who would rule us?" asked Ser Dennis Plumm. "King Robert is dead, his sons slain."

"Our liege," Lord Ilyn Algood answered him. "It is yet to be seen who will reign in King's Landing once the war is done, but whoever that may be, whoever our liege's liege may be, our allegiance lies with House Lannister, as it always has."

"That is not under dispute," said tall, dark-haired Ser Ormund Banefort. "But it is pertinent to ask what we are fighting for. If we should lose, well, then our miserable fate is not difficult to glimpse; but what if we should prove victorious? Who will sit the Iron Throne? Are we to bend the knee in exchange for well-treatment, and seek the mercy of Renly?"

" _Never_ ," swore Ser Addam Marbrand, anger flashing in his pale blue eyes. "The Others take me first! I spit on Renly's mercy. He has no right to offer it. That traitor and slayer of women and children and his own kin who seeks to dispossess us all cannot rule anybody."

A group of other westermen raised their voices in agreement, clamouring in favour of Ser Addam. Tyrion was troubled by that. The handsome young knight was a close friend of Jaime and it had not pleased him to see Tyrion's accession.

"Then who?" Ser Ormund pressed, speaking alone. There was no chorus for his thoughts, though some, such as Lord Plumm and both of his surviving sons, looked sympathetic. "One of King Robert's bastard sons?" He glanced at Tyrion. "Our lord?"

"Queen Myrcella," Tyrion interjected. "House Targaryen may have practised elsewise since the Dance, but by our law, passed down to us by the Father, the daughter of the elder brother comes before any fruit of the younger brother's loins. Myrcella is King Joffrey's heir by blood right."

Lord Philip Plumm, whose hair contained more white than grey but who had killed more men in his sixty-fifth year than other men at twenty, seemed doubtful. "From within an armed party of Dornish guards?"

"It is a difficulty," Tyrion admitted. _Almost certainly an unnavigable one, though it would be unwise to tell them that._ "She is the rightful queen nevertheless."

"And if Lord Renly kills her, or consigns her to the silent sisters? I am sorry for your niece, my lord, but the prospect cannot be ignored."

Tyrion drew in a deep breath. _Here it comes._ "We must pray not. But if that dark hour comes, then the west will become a sovereign kingdom again, as it was of old."

At that, the pavilion fell into a sharp-edged silence.

Tyrion had known that this would be contentious. His courtiers were not such fools as to mutter against their liegelord when he was standing at their side, but he had no doubt that they doubted the wisdom of this course. It was a drastic thing, to split from the Seven Kingdoms, and he had all but told them that there was no circumstance in which he would consent to bend the knee to Renly. Doubtless there were more than a few westerlords who disagreed with that. But they dared not give voice to their opinion here and now, lest they be denounced. It was no easy thing to speak in favour of reconciliation with Renly Baratheon when the red tidings of the Rape of Dragonstone were fresh to their ears.

That was what Tyrion had been counting on, when he had taken the gamble of holding this council so soon. Now that House Lannister had no claimant to the Iron Throne, some would be bound to ask for peace and submission to the usurper, and Tyrion would not allow that—not after everything Renly had done to his family.

Strangely enough, it was Addam Marbrand who broke it. "My lords! Sers! Myrcella Baratheon is our queen by rights, a fair young maid who has never done ill, and even as we speak the perfidious Dornish are delivering her towards her death at the hands of the man who slew her brothers. Does the injustice of it not sting?"

"Of course it does," said Ser Jaime Peckledon, who had lost his right leg in the Battle of the Green Fork, fighting for House Lannister, "but nothing can be done of it, ser. The Dornish will have her under heavy guard."

"Not too heavy," said Ser Addam. "The stormlanders _hate_ the Dornish. Lord Renly would never let them take too great a party through the stormlands; his bannermen would loathe him for it."

"He might fear that animosity," Lord Robert Brax replied, "but not nearly as much as he would fear her release. He'll let them take as many as they need."

"Even if they were a hundred-thousand strong, she is the queen! Daughter to King Robert, to whom we all pledged our allegiance! My lords, sers, I ask you—are we not men? Is there not valour in the men of the west? Then I say we take a party of true and courageous men, we come by sea, we intercept the band of Dornish traitors on the road, and we fall upon them and bring Queen Myrcella to safety!"

Ser Harrold Myatt rushed to Ser Addam's side. "The queen will not perish in captivity. Not while I draw breath."

Ser Robert Algood rose too. "Sers, I am with you."

Then Ser Humfrey Swyft. "I, too."

"I'm with you—"

"I—"

"And I—"

"And I—"

One by one, knights of the westerlands rose and pledged themselves to the rescue. Bold young men for the most part, but some older men too. Many were not even second sons. Ser Addam himself was the heir to Ashemark, yet disdained the comfort of a sure inheritance for the dream of eternal glory.

 _Magnificent_ , thought Tyrion Onearm. _It would make for a splendid song._ But no such song would ever be written, he expected; for singers did not seem to oft write songs about great adventures where all the adventurers ended with Dornish spears in the gut or on a headsman's block.

Provisions were established and, in secret, the party was sent. Tyrion did not imagine he would see them again. Meantime, he gathered back the remnants of House Lannister's strength. Day by day, knights and soldiers of the westerlands returned from wherever they had been foraging or garrisoning castles or depleting House Tully's strength throughout the riverlands. His lord father had dispersed Lannister strength too far and wide, Tyrion considered. The attempt to lure Robb Stark out of the westerlands by reaving the riverlands had failed. Oh, it had drawn out Edmure Tully, eventually, and the Stark boy as a result, but only too late; and for what Tyrion now intended, he would need every man of the westerlands' host.

Would it work? Quite possibly not. But Lord Tyrion did not intend to be the last Lannister to rule Casterly Rock, the inglorious end of a glorious legacy of ten-thousand years. No matter that, at the time he succeeded his lord father, the situation had already been almost hopeless. If House Lannister fell while he was its lord, he would be remembered for that, not the mighty Lord Tywin who had never lost a battle.

 _Joffrey led us into ruin, Father, not I_ , Tyrion thought. _I escaped from Catelyn Stark and Lysa Arryn without doing harm to our House. Joffrey gave us an unnecessary war against House Stark by killing Lord Eddard, at the same time as we had to face Lord Renly. You bequeathed to me a war that's all but lost and I am trying to salvage as much as I can._ He touched the stump of his right arm. _If Jaime had done what I did, you would have called it courage… I am not a burden on House Lannister. Why did you never see that?_

It irritated Tyrion that even now, as Lord of Casterly Rock, he could not escape his father in his thoughts. Lord Tywin's shadow was too long. He did not wish to live his life inside it.

He called in Mychel and spoke at great length about the arrangements at camp, to busy himself with other things.

A week and a half after word of the Rape of Dragonstone reached Lord Tyrion's army's camp on the Trident, the last of the garrisons arrived from Lannister-held castles throughout the riverlands: a portly knight of medium height named Ser Amory Lorch with two-hundred western men-at-arms and a larger number of rivermen and riverwomen as servants. On the other hand, that did not mean that all of House Lannister's power had been recalled from throughout the riverlands, for it was harder for messengers to find a roving party of raiders than a stationary garrison. On the other hand, mounted raiding parties could move faster than the likes of Ser Amory's company. So Tyrion determined that he would have the whole of his strength soon enough.

At that prompt, he gathered some envoys. Messengers were sent to the gates, one final time. Their offers of food and well-treatment in case of surrender were rejected with contempt, one final time. And so he gave the long-awaited order to take Lord Bolton's castles by storm.

 _War_ , Tyrion reflected afterward, _is pitiless._ The northern foot were gaunt shadows of men. They had been besieged here by the western host ever since his lord father had taken Lord Bolton by surprise and inflicted a savage defeat upon him in the Battle of the Banks, more than five turns of the moon ago. The remainder of Lord Bolton's army had fled into these small castles near the river Trident (not one of them was big enough to accommodate them all), to endure an unexpected siege in places that they had not prepared, and that ordeal had taken a terrible toll upon them. He had attacked at night, since starved men were slower than healthy men to wake up and get into their armour in a hurry. Many were so weak that they could scarce lift their swords; many others had starved to death entirely. Yet this remnant of a remnant still slew hundreds of westermen in the effort to climb their walls, when they would not have stood a fraction of a chance in a battle on an open field.

The northern foot's supply situation had been even more desperate than the lords and captains of the western host had imagined. Roose Bolton, it transpired from interrogating the prisoners, had not been commanding the besieged host. He never had been. He had taken an arrow in the Battle of the Banks and then died of a wound gone bad shortly afterwards. For all this time that Tyrion's lord father had thought he was besieging the Lord of the Dreadfort, he had in truth been besieging a certain Robett Glover, a northman of a minor House that, to add insult to injury, did not even hold lordly rank.

Tyrion could not help but compare this miserable shattered host to the far vaster one that he had seen in the Battle of the Blackwater and the Battle of King's Landing. He looked upon the companies of skeletal northern prisoners, ravenously gulping their meals, eating better in Lannister captivity than they had done for moons under their own lords, and thought of the gleaming-mailed ranks of the stormlands and the Reach, stretching in their thousands and their tens of thousands beyond the horizon. _Father decided his priority should be to face down_ this _host, instead of the campaign against Renly. Because Robb Stark hurt his pride._

He did not know whether to laugh or cry.

The evening after the taking of the final castle, at the dining table, Ser Harys Swyft rose and lifted his cup. "To our lord," he cried, "and to our victory! May he win a hundred more!"

" _A hundred more_!" roared the westerlords, cheering and hammering their fists on the table.

It _was_ a victory, Lord Tyrion supposed. The enemy had lost a great deal more men than he had. But most of those losses had been in the previous moons, due to lack of food, rather than in battle due to the sword-thrusts of his soldiers. The outcome of the storming had been preordained, thanks to Lord Tywin's long siege; the northmen could never have prevailed. And now he had fewer men to use against Renly.

He rose to his feet, and he smiled, and he acknowledged his bannerman's praise with grace, and all the while he thought, _Some victory._


	11. Chapter 11

**LYLE**

Storm-torn waters beset them through the night. The fishermen and their wives were bailing nigh endlessly. As weary as he was, Lyle could not recall much of it. Cocooned in scraggly wool, he drifted in and out of awareness while thunder bellowed its fury and walls of dark water rose broad and bruising out of the sea, flinging the fishing boat back and forth. It was as if the gods themselves sought to deny them. More than once the boat was close to turning over; Lyle gazed straight into the frenzied sea until the boat came crashing down the other side with a terrific jolt.

As if from a great distance, Lyle heard the howling rush of wind and water, shouts of angry panicked voices… and a jarring _crack_ mere feet from his ear, a shock like shattered bone. From half-consciousness he jerked fully awake. Jagged spurs of wood protruded from the small extended family's fishing boat. Swept upon the shallows, its back had been broken.

His first thought was of Prince Tommen. He almost wept with relief when he glimpsed green eyes on a small face in the starlight, amidst a gaggle of the fishermen's children. _The boy lives. Mayhaps it was not all for naught, after all._

The three fishermen dragged Lyle ashore. It was a cool wet morning, before dawn. Both of his legs and his arms and his back were covered with small cuts and bruised and swollen with the strain he had imposed on them. The fishermen took away the wool that they had put about him when he had been pulled from the cold water, clutching the prince with the last of his strength, a step away from death. The cold pierced him like a sword. He trembled. _I must be strong_ , Lyle told himself, willing himself to be silent… and yet he moaned in reflexive protest when they dumped his shivering body on the damp rocky beach, none too gently. He could not stop himself from making the sound. The shame was almost as cruel as the cold.

Someone opened Lyle's own cloak, still sodden from his swim in the Narrow Sea. By the silver starlight, Lyle's blinking eyes faintly made out the figure of a bearded man above him, rummaging roughly around his body. The fisherman found the bag tied to Lyle's belt, the bag with everything he owned except the clothes on his back and his scabbard and sword, and undid the knots with nimble fingers. "Done," he called. He stood, holding the bag, and he and his family began to walk away.

"You can't do that!" A voice he knew. Prince Tommen's.

"Why not?" One of the fishwives, a woman with a voice as sharp as flint. "Your pa swore us that gold. It's ours now."

"You wouldn't have _any_ gold, if not for us," said Tommen. "Just a little. Please. We need to eat. You can't leave us here, penniless."

"Bad luck for you, bald boy," the fishwife mocked. She kept walking away, with her husband and kin.

Lyle's face twisted with anger. "Stop that!" He pushed himself to his feet, right hand falling to his side to grasp the hilt of his sword. His strained legs loosed a spurt of pain that roared through his body; they suddenly gave way. Lyle toppled over on the wet rocks and hit the ground.

Scornful laughter rang out above him, unseen but heard keenly. He heard footsteps, too: footsteps receding.

A small voice said, "You ought give him something, pa."

"Shut up 'bout what you don't know," another of the fishermen told him curtly. Lyle recognised the voice; this was the one whose hair was more grey than brown, the one who had dived in and fetched him from the water. "That gold's our safety, lad. The Mother has smiled on us. We'll have a great big house in the city all for ourselves, what with horses and servants to call ours and all that, and beef for the table, and feather-beds to sleep on."

"We'll still do that with a _bit_ less," the little boy said. "There's so much gold here, we won't need the silver. Look at him, pa," he appealed. "He can't even stand."

"The _Seven-Pointed Star_ says the Father remembers them what are kind to needful folk," the bearded fisherman pointed out.

The eldest fisherman turned back, with poor grace. "Very well," he grumbled. "You can have a _little_ bit of our silver and copper."

"And—" Lyle croaked. _My cloak. Not the one on me, my old cloak._

"What now," said one of the other fishwives, "you ungrateful bastard?"

 _You only did it because you wanted the gold_ , Lyle thought. _Else you would not be leaving us here, now, alone and unprotected._

That cloak was exquisitely made, whitest of white, handed to him by the Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms when he was anointed and raised to the order of the Kingsguard. It was not just a cloak to him; it was his most prized possession, more even than the sword his father gave him. It meant recognition by the best leader of men he had ever served. It meant the highest destiny possible for a lord's second son like Lyle Crakehall. It meant the greatest achievement of his life.

No smallfolk man had a cloak like that.

He bit his tongue. "Thank you," he said instead.

The fishwife grunted. Lyle could not tell whether it was an acknowledgement. She and her family went away, and soon their footsteps were inaudible next to the noise of the raindrops.

His greatest achievement… and yet he did not doubt these fishermen would like the taste of the usurper's gold as much as Tommen's. Let them know who he was and the last son of Robert Baratheon would soon be back in King's Landing, in Lord Renly's hands.

 _And now he is not. Now he is free, shipwrecked on a beach in Crackclaw Point._

Lyle closed his eyes. The dark damp boulder in front of his face was all that he could see anyway. The cuts on his arms and legs tormented him, a thousand vicious thornlike pricks, from the climb up Dragonmount and the time he had dragged Prince Tommen over the seafloor to get him away from the traitors. So did the strain on his arms and legs and back. Never in his life had he borne himself so far, carrying Tommen's weight as well as his own. He had run and climbed and fought and swum for ten men, on that black day on Dragonstone, all in the desperate hope-beyond-hope that he could save the king and his family from the treachery of the usurper. He had failed them, all of them but one. But he had saved that one.

"Go," he said.

It was too much to bear. Lyle gritted his teeth—better that than to cry out—and willed his agony to fade. He rolled over onto his back. To Lyle's weary ears, the rain pounding down upon him sounded like an echo of the day he had arrived on Dragonstone, when he had brought Prince Tommen to nigh his doom. _Drop-drop-drop-drop-drop._

"Get up, ser," Tommen said, somewhere above him. "You can't sleep here. It's too cold and wet, and there's no shelter from the rain. We need to go this way, away from the sea. There might be farms, and I see bushes and trees in the valleys."

"I'm not going to sleep, my prince," Lyle murmured. _Such a sweet child._ He almost smiled… then the slight motion of his face caused his cuts, covered with salt water, to sting, and the wave of pain that rolled over him crushed all else beneath it. "I'm dying. Go."

"I won't," said Tommen.

"I cannot go with you further," said Lyle. "Look at me, my prince. _Look_ at me. That fisherman wasn't mistaken; I have not the strength to stand."

"You must." The boy moved to kneel over Lyle. Those green eyes were full of tears. "You're going to take me across the Narrow Sea. You promised."

"I can't."

"You'll be better."

"I'll not have time," said Lyle. "I did this to myself, for you. To save you. All of that's in vain if you don't leave me. You're safer now—not safe, but safer. You're no longer on Dragonstone, surrounded by traitors. Don't tarry for me. I'm a knight of the Kingsguard; I swore a vow; this is what I was meant for. You are the one who matters. Now that your brother is dead, you are the king by rights. The realm needs you, to have a better king than Renly. Go into the valleys, as you say. Take the copper. Take the silver. Take my sword. And _go_."

"Everyone says that," said Tommen angrily. "Mother said I had to go, and Cella said to go, too. Well, she went away and now she's in Dorne, when the Dornish hate us, Grandfather said so. I went away from Mother and Mother's dead, and Grandfather's dead. I had to go, and Joffy's dead, even cousin Shireen, and she was nice to me. Everybody tells me I'm prince, I'm king, I matter, I need to go. And I keep going, and people keep dying." He shook his head. "No more, ser. I'm staying with you. So you're going to have to stand."

"Fool of a child," Lyle growled… but no matter what he said, the boy proved quite immovable. So he lay there in the early hours of the morning, sodden and shivering, exhausted beyond reckoning, and yet unable to drift into the peace and quiet of his final sleep.

Eventually Prince Tommen stopped talking. There were bags under those pretty green eyes, and the boy was bruised and bleeding. Tommen, too, had suffered; he had been trampled by a crowd during the first moments of the massacre on Dragonstone, when the Knight of Hartford, vassal and brother to the widowed Lady Chyttering, had murdered Lord Axell Florent and ransacked Dragonsport with his sister's men and its townsfolk had fled from him; and he had come within a hair's breadth of drowning when he and Lyle had swum away from a party of Bar Emmon horsemen. And both of them had been awake with almost no respite since yesterday morning.

In time the boy could not resist falling into the embrace of sleep, his small body draped stubbornly next to Lyle, giving him some measure of warmth. Lyle, colder, wetter and in agony, found it difficult to do the same. He too eventually relented, lulled by the soft steady sound of the ocean lapping a few yards from his ears.

Lyle awoke with suddenness. He had always been a light sleeper. It was still night, the same night. It was still the black of moon. The sun was still nowhere to be seen. The ocean could still be heard lapping. _Why am I so cold?_

The boy by his side was gone.

"My prince," Lyle called. He struggled to stand. His arms and legs howled whenever he attempted to push on them. His neck was less exhausted than the rest of him, so he bent it forward, upward, and was able to look around.

When he saw a small pale childlike figure wading into the sea, he sighed with relief, drooping his head… then sent it bolt upright. It was dark. By starlight alone he should not have been able to see Tommen so clearly. He was pale, much too pale; his head, as bald as Tommen's, was too large; and there was a dimly visible darker shape, squirming, being dragged behind him…

Fear shot through Lyle, as sharp as pain. _I am dreaming_ , he thought, hoped, prayed. He was in no shape to fight a man, much less some monster out of legend.

The words of the Lord Regent floated through his head. _The last, best hope for the men of the west._

Lyle bent his knees, to push himself up. _I must stand._ His muscles shook with the effort, and went slack, like a burst bag with too much weight. The pain of pulling felt like a wolf's howl in his head, drowning out all else.

In his mind, in his memory, Ser Kevan Lannister's eyes met his own. Lyle fell to one knee and made a promise.

Again he pulled. His arms scrabbled for purchase on the wet rock. He pulled to bend his legs towards him, so that he could make himself stand. They bent, howled in protest, trembled… he pushed down against the wet rock, hard, with his hands… _must stand…_ his backside rose from the ground…

His legs failed him. They trembled involuntarily, for a single instant losing all their strength. He fell bottom-first and hit the rocks with a wet thump. The impact set his legs afire. He had to bite his tongue hard, tasting blood, to stop himself from screaming.

The monster kept moving, onward, dragging Tommen further away.

Hot tears sprang to Lyle's eyes, born of misery and frustration and shame. _Am I not a knight?_ He had promised Ser Kevan. _No matter what you need do, no matter who you need face, come blood, come battle, come the Others from the seven hells, you will keep him safe._ All that he had done to keep that oath… would it be meaningless, at the end of things?

 _It can't be… it can't be…_

Pale, unhurried, the monster glided on… the struggling dark shape had almost disappeared into the water…

Lyle set his hands against the rock, braced his legs and pushed. The pain was white-hot and all-devouring. He screamed, long and loud; he could not stop it. Nothing else in the world existed, nothing—nothing but the pain and the oath, the iron chain pulling him to the ground and the iron chain pulling him up again.

With wonder, Lyle noticed he was standing.

Alerted by his scream, the creature turned to face him. Lyle felt faint from fear. Its huge face was scaled, white-eyed and completely noseless; it did not merely have a nose cut off, it had plainly never possessed a nose. Its mouth contained several arrays of pointed green teeth, longer than a man's and sharp as daggers. It dropped Prince Tommen in the water from its webbed hands and straightened its back. Lyle's heart skipped a beat. It was not, as he had thought, of child's stature, now that it was no longer hunched over, pulling Tommen. Far from it. Lyle was taller than almost any man he knew. This thing was taller than Lyle.

Lyle drew his sword, took two unsteady steps forward and pointed his own sword straight at the monster's face.

"I know not what you are," he rasped, gripping the sword in his right hand. It felt as heavy as a horse. "But I am a sworn brother of the Kingsguard, guarding my king, and be you beast or demon from the seven hells, _you_ — _will_ — _run_."

The monster regarded him with its unfathomable white eyes. Lyle saw his own death reflected in them; he knew he was in no fit state to survive if they made a fight of it. Every second was an act of will to stay up. Lyle trembled, holding off hot agony, holding up cold steel. Then, in a single, elegant, wholly deliberate motion, it drew from its side a long thin thing so black that Lyle could scarce see it in the night, a weapon blacker than the darkness.

Despairing, his exhausted back and legs struggling to support his weight, knowing he was doomed, Lyle stepped forward—

—and the monster stumbled. Something small had struck it from behind; Lyle caught sight of a small dark form. The tall pale thing recovered its footing and turned with shocking swiftness, twisting its back all the way around, black sword flying—

Lyle half-threw himself, half-fell forward and thrust his sword all the way through that wet white neck.

A fountain of green blood gushed out all over his hand; then there was water in his eyes, his mouth, his nose.

Someone heaved him out. Lyle spluttered, gasping air. He looked up and saw a face he knew.

"My prince…"

"We aren't safe here," Tommen said. "We're going."

He took hold of Lyle and pulled with all his strength. Lyle saw the strain on the prince's sweating face, but Tommen made no remark of it. Without complaint, Tommen dragged Lyle with all his strength, inland, as far as he was able.

They made it a hundred yards from the shoreline, to a tree to recline under. All the wood to be found was greenwood, so they had no fire. Lyle slumped against the tree and surrendered to sleep.

The next thing Lyle was aware of was a hand rifling through his pockets. He was no deep sleeper. Immediately his eyes snapped open.

"Oh my," a voice said, in a tone of mild surprise. "A live one."

Peering down at him was a thin, grubby, mousy-haired, disreputable-looking little man, wearing a patched brown coat.

"You meant to rob me," Lyle said, putting a hand on his sword.

The grubby man shrugged, unrepentant, though somewhat nervous. "I thought you're a dead 'un," he said. "Pardon my sayin' so, you ain't lookin' too far from it, big fellow. Normally the flies don't gather on livin' men, you take my meanin'."

Lyle was irritated to discover that the little man was right; there were, indeed, flies all around him. _Gods, what a dank disgusting miserable place._

Tommen stirred, hearing voices, and caught sight of Lyle and the grubby little man. "Father? Who's this?"

"Why, old Jon o' the Patches, that would be me," the grubby little man said. "And if you'll forgive me, _I_ need to be looking around."

Jon o' the Patches took his leave, and wandered back towards the shoreline, where a pair of horses with a cart were waiting. Now, in broad daylight, it was hard to believe that he had seen what he had seen last night.

In a voice that could have strangled a cat, the grubby man was singing. "Laughed, laughed the maid, she put the flower in his hair—"

The grubby man got on his cart and set the horses towards a spot far in the distance. Lyle's eyes strained to make it out. He sat up—he was pleased to discover that was getting less painful—to look at it more clearly; and…

"That's a shipwreck," Lyle said incredulously. "You're robbing their dead, too."

"'Course I am." If Jon o' the Patches felt a shred of remorse, he concealed it superbly. "Their coin, well, it won't be doin' them no good, will it? Nor their wares. Plenty of 'em are rich Gulltowners, merchants, not penniless arses like you two. Lots of the wrecks wash up here. Why shouldn't they give an old man an honest living, I asks you?"

Lyle thought to reply, then thought again, more carefully.

"They should," he called. He withdrew a coin. "How would you like to earn a silver stag?"

At the mention of that last word, the grubby little man's face turned back to them. He stopped the horses. "A stag, you say?"

"Yes," Lyle said, holding (a flattering impression of) King Robert's face up for inspection. "You see, we want to reach a town at the coast. We could walk and look for ourselves, but it would be easier not to."

When he had so little of his strength, he did not wish to wander Crackclaw Point alone, for fear of the pale things from the sea.

There was a greedy glint in Jon o' the Patches' eyes. "Oh don't you fret," he crooned, "you'll be in the best of care. But you see, I fear, without my help, you won't know at all where to go."

The rest was haggling.

Soon enough, after spending some of what little was left of their coin, Lyle and Tommen were bumping up and down on a rickety cart, on their way to what their guide promised was the biggest town for miles around. They passed through bogs and pine woodlands, taking winding paths around the hills, meandering in narrow passes, weaving through the shallow rainy hills and dark wet wooded valleys that seemed to comprise the whole of Crackclaw Point. Flies were everywhere; people were sparse; and it was always either raining or about to be raining.

Their guide spent much of the journey regaling them with tales of the Crackclaws. "We're of the blood of the First Men," he began, "not them Andals. The others sucked their cocks, but we beat them off. They ain't as tough as us; they sure as shit didn't know how to live here. They stuck to their pretty meadows and left the dangerous lands to us."

He continued in that vein. To hear Jon o' the Patches tell it, one would have thought that Crackclaw Point was the most desired land in all the world, eagerly pursued since ancient times by all its neighbours: the Mooton kings from Maidenpool, the Darklyn kings from the Dun Fort, and the Durrandon kings from Storm's End.

The latter were especially persistent, and especially despised. "Them stormlanders been killin' us since before even the Andals came," Jon o' the Patches said, "and we been killin' them back, as they deserve. Why, there's this one time—" And he proceeded to relate, in detail, the story of King Durran the Fat, who had been fooled and defeated by the cunning Lord Yorick Pyne of Shadydell.

"—and the Storm King blundered right in," Jon o' the Patches ended enthusiastically. "They charged into the valley, the one what with Lord Yorick's arches waitin', and they killed all of 'em. An' Yorick brought the stormlander up to him, in chains, and the Storm King said, 'You got this victory, but we'll get more victories. Crackclaw will be ours, unless all your heirs are as wise as you.' And y'know what Lord Yorick said? 'Crackclaw will be ours, as long as all your heirs are as damn great fools as you'." He laughed heartily. "And so they were!"

Prince Tommen said, "Isn't it bad to say that? Father said House Durrandon were—were the family of the king."

"The king? Here's what I think o' the king and the old king and all their kind." Jon o' the Patches spat onto the ground twice. "There's to Renly Baratheon and there's to Joffrey Baratheon. None of 'em are kings worth a damn. No stormlander usurper is _our_ king, here in Crackclaw. _We remember._ " He said those last words very proudly.

Late that evening, they reached the town they had been promised, a squat widespread place without walls, spread out from its centre at a wide hilltop. Truth be told, it was more like a village than a town. It had only a single inn and only a single sept, both of them wooden.

Lyle was thinking of a meal and a warm bed first and foremost, looking through the window to one of the beds in the Red Wing inn, but his charge seemed to have had higher hopes. "How will we get a ship here?" Tommen despaired. "It doesn't even have a shore!"

"Why should it?" said Jon o' the Patches. "Crackclaws don't build no towns on the shore, never—only walled castles."

He gave no explanation. Regardless, Lyle suspected he knew.

To Lyle's considerable surprise, for all his grave-robbing and nigh-treasonous blabber, Jon o' the Patches did indeed deliver them to the inn without incident. Lyle had not expected that. He had spent the whole journey without his hand ever straying far from the hilt of his sword.

A strange thought, that even in these treason-blighted days one could be too distrustful.

He gave the mousy-haired, grubby little man the silver he had promised. "As I swore," he told him.

The little man clasped his hand solemnly. "As you did."

For the next few days, Lyle stayed in his room at the Red Wing, resting and eating well and recovering his strength. It felt like a waste of money to wait, but he knew that it was necessary. Someday soon they would head to Maidenpool, the nearest large port on the mainland to here, in order to take a ship across the Narrow Sea, and he could not protect Prince Tommen on the road if he could not walk. Though still somewhat sore and strained, his arms and legs and back were in much better condition afterwards.

One evening he was standing in the inn, nursing his pint of ale and listening to the Crackclaws chatter, when a burly black-bearded man walked through the door, greeted with nods by many of the others. He sat down with a gaggle of men and started exchanging pleasantries.

"Clarence!" cried a shorter man. "It's been a while. How was business?"

"Good," the black-bearded man said. "They buy the flax. Got a great price for it."

"No wonder," the shorter man said, "what with Lord Renly wanting a fleet to help him kill his nephew. Y'know, you missed Alys's marriage."

"Alys?" said Clarence. "Gods be good, I thought she'd die a spinster."

"So did everyone," the shorter man said, leaning forward conspiratorially. "You hear this, it's a great 'un…"

They spoke more along those lines, relating the latest village gossip. Lyle ignored it, as he usually ignored whatever was spoken in this inn—his purpose here was simply to rest and recover—until he caught a turn of phrase.

"—and here's one thing you won't have heard," Clarence was telling his shorter companion.

"Which is?"

"The Imp has gone and made hisself a lord."

"You're _japing_ ," the shorter man said, astonished.

"No jape," said his big black-bearded fellow. "When I was in the next valley along, I had it from Artos, and he had it from his friend Willem, and _he_ had it from Benjen, this man he spoke to what was tradin' up the Trident and stopped off at Crackclaw. Only a few days after Lord Tywin popped it, the Imp went and landed at Lord Tywin's army's camp, up north where the kingsroad crosses the Trident, and, what d'you know, next thing anyone knows he's goin' about callin' himself lord. Onearm, they call him now, 'cause he lost the other in the battle, an' _he_ 's Lord of Casterly Rock and Lord Regent of the realm too. All the other westerlords are doin' what he says."

"Full men, doin' whatever a dwarf says? Now _there's_ a jape for you. What next? Sheep shearing shepherds?"

Lyle was no longer paying heed to them. _Lord Tywin's son is alive._ He had not imagined it, had not even dared to hope… and yet it seemed that somehow the gods had seen fit to answer prayers he had not been so presumptuous as to make.

He had thought without a shadow of a doubt that the conspirators would be successful in seizing control of Lord Tywin's host after their murder of Lord Tywin. It had seemed too well-planned, too cunning, too carefully made to look like an accident. Instead they had been thwarted, or mayhaps—he had to hope, for his brothers' sakes—they had been disrupted by Lord Tyrion's unexpected arrival and had dared not make the attempt at all. If Lord Tyrion were calling himself Lord Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, that meant he was the usurper's foe, for Renly would have no regent. And if Lord Tyrion were the usurper's foe, that meant there was still a considerable army opposing Lord Renly, loyal to the line of Robert Baratheon.

Lyle had sworn his vows as a sworn brother of the Kingsguard—now, perhaps, the last sworn brother of the Kingsguard—and Tommen was here. The fate of the rightful king rested on his shoulders. If there remained an army to fight for him, there remained a chance.

 _A very poor chance still_ , Lyle thought. _A reckless hope, that Renly will fall._ But he would sooner hold to a reckless hope than lead Prince Tommen into an exile without money or supporters, an exile which would doubtless be destined for a failure as pitiful as the late Viserys Targaryen's. He could not count himself as true to his oaths if he sat and did naught while the only hope of restoration was crushed under Lord Renly's iron heel. It was not enough to keep Tommen from Lord Renly's knives; he had to set right what Lord Renly had set wrong.

With more hope than he had known since the day of Lord Tywin's murder, Lyle climbed the stairs. His legs did not bother him so badly now.

"Father?" said the boy sprawled on the bed, looking up bleary-eyed at him.

Lyle closed at the door and smiled at him. "It seems," he whispered, "you are not the last of your kin after all."


	12. Chapter 12

**CATELYN**

The clatter of metal, angry shouts and curses from afar filled Catelyn's ears. Faint music of birds and bleating of sheep rang like thunderclaps. Aside from them, the courtyard of Riverrun was silent.

Two stout armed men in ringmail dragged in a struggling figure, with four others around them. He was bruised and slim and dirty and shaggy-bearded. If not that she had already known since her son's arrival at Riverrun yesterday, Catelyn could not have named him. When the hands held behind his back reached once again for a weapon, one of the guards hit him with a gauntleted hand. The captive cried out and blood dripped down his face.

"Leave him," Robb said.

They stepped away—though not far—and at once the captive flung an arm before his face to ward off the glare of sunlight. When he put it down, she recognised the yellow hair and catlike eyes of Ser Jaime Lannister.

The sight of Bran pale and motionless on his sickbed flashed through Catelyn's mind, and she could not help but feel a rush of hate.

Squinting in the golden light of noon that bathed the men sworn to House Stark, the Kingslayer beheld the arrayed northern lords, standing with their guards and squires and kinsmen, all dressed in exquisite finery. The Greatjon scowled down at him in a handsome doublet that could have fit three of Catelyn. The Smalljon beside him was scarcely less vast. Galbart Glover, short and brown-haired and bushy-bearded, was garbed in red silk with the white mailed fist of his House. Grey-haired Lady Maege wore an elegant surcoat with the bear of Mormont embroidered on a field of green, without her usual ringmail. And the tall, thin Lord of Karhold, Rickard Karstark, was mantled in black, with the white sunburst of his House less resplendent than his smile.

She saw the Kingslayer's blinking eyes move to the fore of the column, where she stood, and then, between herself and her uncle Brynden, to the crown of bronze and iron that rested on the red-maned head of her son.

"Stark," he said slowly, in a hoarse voice cracked like old dry mud.

"Ser Jaime Lannister," Robb said, his voice clear and cold. "You are brought here in my presence for the crimes you've committed, against the laws of gods and men."

"Oh?" Lannister lifted a golden eyebrow. Battered and beaten as he was, there was still a certain beauty about him. "And what supposed crimes would be those?"

He sounded detachedly curious. If he feared his peril, there was not a flicker of it on his tongue.

"Many," said Robb. "Usurpation, incest, murder, and breaking the oaths you are sworn to uphold."

"A hefty list, to be sure," Jaime Lannister said dryly. He spoke not a word of insult, but every man in the courtyard could hear the mockery. "Do you have any witnesses for that? Any cause to believe it? Or are we all merely to take it from your word?"

"Some men's words are more trustworthy than yours," Robb said, rising slightly to the bait, "but we are not here to listen to your glib tongue." He gave a short sharp gesture. "Mother."

Catelyn said, "When this man was my guest in Winterfell, there came a day when King Robert went hunting, along with my lord husband and the other menfolk. Save for the Kingslayer, who stayed behind, with the queen. My son Bran has climbed a certain abandoned tower many times, and never suffered harm. It is a place he is—was fond of."

Her voice choked, when she said that.

She went on. She had to. "Yet on that day, on that abandoned tower in Winterfell that he knew so well, he fell from a great height and almost died. Ill luck, I would have thought, and did think—till the day a hired killer crept into Bran's bedchamber with a knife. I know this because I was there. I saw him. I confronted him. He gave me this."

She held up her hands, showing the scars upon her fingers, viciously deep. A low murmur rumbled through the assembled lords and ladies and folk of the north.

"Three mighty men died in King's Landing, less than a year from one another," Catelyn continued. "Lord Arryn, our honourable Hand of the King. The king himself. My Ned. That is too much to be coincidence."

"Lord Arryn was old as sin, it's no wonder—" Jaime said, until he was punched in the stomach.

"All of them stood between House Lannister and utter control over the Iron Throne, yes," Catelyn said, "but there is more to it than that. The Lannisters meant to murder my Bran too, there can be no doubt of that, and he posed no threat to them. How could he? He was a boy of seven namedays. _Seven_."

The murmur grew louder, rising in outrage. "Shame!" cried a young lordling sworn to Hornwood, and Lord Karstark growled, "Child-murderer," with venom in his voice.

"Why try to kill him?" Catelyn asked them all. "They sought to kill him, not Robb, and Bran was too young to lead an army. Why—if not for something he had seen?"

"So we have it," said Robb. "Kingslayer, you are accused of cuckolding your king by committing adultery with your own sister, siring abominations against the laws of gods and men. And of deceiving all true men about your treason, so that they would fight for an abomination against their king. And of fighting and killing good men to perpetrate a usurpation. What have you to say in your defence?"

When her son finished speaking, the northmen jeered and spat at the captive. Ser Jaime tried to speak, but he could not be heard over the insults.

"Enough!" Robb called. "Enough! We will hear what he has to say."

"So that is your reason to believe it," Lannister said. "An old man sickens and dies. That happens every hour of every day; many men take sick and go to the Stranger at that age. A drunkard who loves hunting—tell me that is not what Robert was, I dare you; name me a liar when every man of you knows it is true—"

"Liar," Lord Karstark said at once.

"Warrior defend me, you're tiresome," Lannister said, rolling his eyes. "An old man sickens. A drunkard and hunter gets drunk and hunts, and goes the wrong way of a boar. And your Ned tries to overthrow a king and fails, and suffers the usual consequence." He made a show of looking around, wide-eyed. "I don't quite see the conspiracy."

"All in quick succession, shortly after each other," said Robb, unamused. "If they happened years apart, that would be another matter. And there is my brother Bran."

"Oh yes," Lannister said. "Never mind that it is far more suspiciously convenient that this tale of incest should emerge now, with King Robert helpfully dead, to put Lord Stannis and Lord Renly closer to the Iron Throne. Some vicious cutthroat comes after your brother—they exist, unfortunately; that's why castles should have guards—and you say I bought him, because of… what?"

"The dagger your man tried to kill my son with," Catelyn said. She had expected this question; her answer was prepared. "Your brother's dagger. Valyrian steel, an uncommon make. He won it at the joust on Joffrey's nameday, wagering on the Knight of Flowers, when nigh every other man wagered on _you_."

"A lie," said Jaime.

Her son's thin clean-shaven face became a mask of fury. "No man calls my lady mother a liar in my presence."

"I didn't say it was _her_ lie," Jaime said, "I said it was a lie." He turned to Catelyn. "You weren't there at Joffrey's nameday, so it's plain that someone told you this. Whoever he was, he lied. Any man who attended tourneys in King's Landing or Casterly Rock could have told you that; if you'd asked them, you would have known my brother always bets on me." He gave an artful shrug. "Tyrion is like that. He is loyal to his family."

 _Stranger take him, could he be telling the truth?_ Catelyn wondered. She recalled that Tyrion Lannister had told her the same, when they were travelling together in the Mountains of the Moon. _Lannisters lie_ , she knew. _I should not listen to their silver tongues. No other had any cause to kill Bran._ Yet Tyrion and Jaime had not spoken to each other since the former left Winterfell, and they were telling the same lie…

She sought to remain impassive, but the Kingslayer read her face. "Even Lady Stark doubts it now," he said. "I know not who told you about that dagger, Lady Stark. But mayhaps he—or the man _he_ heard it from—isn't as honest as you hope he is."

A different-sounding murmur ran through the courtyard, the delicate touch of uncertainty. Even the Greatjon looked thoughtful. The Kingslayer's honeyed words had slithered into their ears. Rickard Karstark's thin face twisted with anger. Catelyn struggled with thoughts fluttering in the wind, fragile as the wings of a butterfly. _My son cannot be seen as unjust, but we must convict him. We mustn't let him off now._ "Nobody but House Lannister had any reason to want to hurt my son."

"Why do you think so?" said Jaime. "Because an old man died, and a drunk hunter hunts poorly?"

"Enough," Robb cut in. He turned to Catelyn. It still gave her a start whenever she noticed once again that his head was higher than hers now. Her son addressed her formally: "My lady of Stark, do you have reason to believe the word of the man who told you is less trustworthy than Ser Jaime's?"

It took all her composure not to let out a sigh of relief. _Clever_ , she thought, admiring her son's way out of the trap. "Your Grace, it is the word of Lord Petyr, a ward of your lord grandfather's, against the word of the oathbreaker who killed the king he was sworn to protect."

Those words fell like hammer-blows. She felt the thoughts of the men in the courtyard turn with them.

"Very well," said Robb. He turned back to the Kingslayer. "Ser Jaime Lannister, of the noble order of the Kingsguard, I judge you guilty of usurpation, breach of guest right, attempted murder, incest, adultery—"

"You wretch, how _dare_ you?" Jaime Lannister spat, rising to his full height. The guards sprang at once to his sides and wrestled him down. "You judge me guilty because of Aerys? _You_? A Stark?"

"I do," Robb said.

"By what right? You have less right than anyone to condemn me for that. Did Ned Stark never tell you how your grandfather died?"

"That is not pertinent," said Robb. The guards holding down the Kingslayer had armour. He had none. Despite that, he fought them every step of the way, as shaggy and golden and fierce as if he were a true lion in chains. It took effort not to step back, daunted.

"Oh it is. When he heard the claims about his sister, your uncle Brandon rode to the Red Keep demanding to fight Prince Rhaegar. 'Come out and die', those were his words. He found no prince, though, only the king, and the king had him arrested for threatening murder on the blood royal. King Aerys summoned Brandon's lord father to court, your grandfather, Rickard Stark. He came, and Aerys had him arrested too."

"Yes, and he killed them," Robb said impatiently. "This is known."

" _This_ isn't," Jaime Lannister said, shouting over the jeers of the northern lords. (The Greatjon roared, "Just kill him, sire!") "Your lord grandfather demanded a trial by combat. He thought to face one of the Kingsguard. Instead, when he came into the throne room in full plate armour, Aerys hung him from the roof and told his pyromancers to set a fire. The Targaryens have always loved fire. Fire was the champion of House Targaryen, Aerys said. Lord Rickard would win the trial, would be proven innocent, if he didn't burn. The pyromancers cooked him carefully, fanning the flames. King Aerys liked it slow; he liked to watch, you see, and if it was over too quickly he complained about the lack of spectacle. They brought your uncle Brandon in while his father was still burning, and chained his hands, and put a cord of leather round his neck, with his sword only _just_ out of his reach. Lord Rickard could be saved, Aerys said, if only Brandon could reach him. Brandon tried, oh yes he tried. He strangled himself trying."

Sometime, somehow, the courtyard had gone quiet. Even the wind was still. The only noise was bleating and birdsong from afar. The king's squire, little Rollam Westerling with his chestnut curls, turned around and was violently sick.

"I killed him, yes," the Kingslayer said. "I won't deny it. For that you judge me." He spat on the ground. "Know _that_ is the man you are mourning."

There was a long silence.

Rickard Karstark recovered himself first. "And that makes you any less a murderer?" he asked derisively. "You truly think we'll believe you murdered your king for the sake of our Lord Stark?"

"I didn't say that," said Lannister.

They ignored him. "Sire, don't heed the Kingslayer. He spits on mercy and honour and oaths," Galbart Glover appealed to Robb. "He has never lifted a finger in his life, and never will, for any man who's not a Lannister."

"Aye," said Catelyn's uncle Brynden, disgust written plainly on his face. "He didn't do it for the victims of the Mad King, he did it for his father, since Lord Tywin found it convenient to have someone inside the walls to help him sack the city and butcher women and babes."

Jaime's face was flushed with wrath. "No, you brute," he snapped in swift, unthinking retort, "I killed him because of the wildfire."

There was a pause. For a moment she thought even the Kingslayer seemed taken aback at what he had said, but soon his face turned back to the usual rage and contempt. It seemed he enjoyed seeing shock and dismay on their faces.

Catelyn recalled the letter from Edmure's man in the crownlands, describing the Battle of the Blackwater. _Lord Renly's rebels attempted to cross the Blackwater… In the battle the king's men unveiled a monstrous new weapon, wildfire in quantities that no man believed possible, thousands of jars. Nobody yet knows how… the rebel host was panicked and driven to rout…_

She said, "What wildfire?"

"Aerys's wildfire. All over King's Landing," Jaime Lannister said tersely. "The pyromancers put it there for him before I killed them. He kept it hidden from everyone except me, the last of his Kingsguard that he had near him, and only me because he kept me around him always, he was so afraid. The Mad King feared everything and everyone else. By the end he even feared Varys; he didn't trust him as much as he once had; that was why he listened to Pycelle instead. It was the Mad King's best-kept secret. Not even Varys knew. But I knew."

 _Nobody could be so mad._ The thought of the capital in flames… It was terrible even to contemplate. The northmen exchanged glances, troubled. Whispers floated on the wind across the column of watching northern lords.

"Why?"

"It was after the Battle of the Trident. Robert Baratheon was coming for the crown. Aerys would do anything to deny it to him. 'The traitors want my city, but I'll give them naught but ashes,' he said in my hearing. 'Let Robert be king over charred bones and cooked meat.'"

When he spoke as Aerys, his voice changed, crackling and echoing with remembered malice. _Mother be merciful_ , Catelyn thought, shuddering to think of it.

"They would have had me do naught about it," Lannister added. "You know the men I mean. Barristan the Bold, Jon Darry, Oswell Whent, old Hightower the White Bull. Him most of all. Your father, too, who only had to look at me to judge me guilty and hold me in contempt. Just be silent and serve, Gerold Hightower told me, whenever I saw Aerys burn a man alive, or heard him bite Queen Rhaella and make her scream, or when I spoke any word to Prince Rhaegar that wasn't 'Yes, my prince'. Be silent and serve. Obey. Do not question. Do whatever they would have of you; that is lawful. Mayhaps I should have; doubtless memory would be kinder to me, that way."

The Kingslayer gazed around, clasped hard in the gauntleted fists of Riverrun guards. His green eyes caught Robb's blue, flashing with resentment.

"I see much of them in you," he hissed, staring up at the young king. "Lawful. Dutiful. Doing what is expected of you. Doubtless, if it were _you_ , you would have done what they wanted, and King's Landing would have blazed to let you avoid the name of oathbreaker. And you would be much-mourned, the good honourable knight, remembered in song as Ser Robb the True."

Robb flinched at that as if it were a barb. Hearing Jaime's tone, Catelyn was not sure it was meant to be.

Her uncle Brynden stepped in between Ser Jaime and the king. "We are not here to hear you insult His Grace," the Blackfish said. "This is a trial."

"Yes," said Lannister. "It is that."

"Thank you, Uncle," her son said, gathering his wits. He looked down at Ser Jaime. "That is a very moving story, Kingslayer. Beautifully told. There is one matter: do you expect any of us to believe it is true?"

More whispers ran lightfoot across the column.

"You are a murderer, an adulterer, an oathbreaker," said Robb. "Any man can say pretty words that would excuse his sins if they were true. Do you truly think the men of the north as such fools as to believe a word from _your_ lips? Your brother helped show us, when he tried and failed to break you free by sending cutthroats dressed as envoys under a truce banner. Your sister helped show us, when she falsely claimed to have my sister Arya as a hostage to trade for you, as we learnt when Renly Baratheon took King's Landing." Robb had placed that comment there deliberately, Catelyn was sure; she watched the Kingslayer jerk as if he had been struck. " _Lannisters lie._ We would be as mad as Aerys, making Aerys's mistake, if we were to place our trust in you."

Further whispers, slithering over the silence. The northern lords' faces, once troubled, were now again self-assured, again convinced. Rickard Karstark was smiling. Catelyn felt foolish for paying Ser Jaime's words as much thought as she had. Lannisters were liars. It had sounded sincere, to be sure, but how could she know that Jaime had not just invented it all out of nothing? Jaime Lannister was a known oathbreaker, and now he had supreme motivation to tell whatever lies he thought might save himself.

Robb said, "Rollam, my sword."

The curly-haired little squire hefted a longsword much too big for him and presented its oaken hilt to the king. _It is much too big for Robb too_ , Catelyn thought, fearing that her son would look small, like a boy wearing his father's clothes; but Robb took it up easily in his hands, and she perceived that it fit him. Over the red hair that tumbled loosely to his shoulders, the crown rested easily now.

The guards closed in. Jaime Lannister lashed out and tried to make a break for freedom, but they were six and he was one, and the kicks he flung at their shins hurt himself more, for they were armoured, and resulted in them holding both his hands and feet. They dragged him to the block that had been set up this morning and forced him to bend down.

"You fucking scum!" Lannister bellowed. Not for a moment did he give in; not for a moment did he stop struggling. "You'll pay for this, my father will come for you, my brother—"

"They will try," said Robb. "Your son slew my father and likely my sister, and you meant to slay my brother too. Did you think your House can do that with impunity? It is not only Lannisters who pay their debts." He lifted the sword. "Would you speak a final word?"

"You have no right to judge me," Jaime Lannister said.

The sword fell.

The first cut slew. It took four more to hack all the way through the bone and send the Kingslayer's golden-haired head rolling. At the end of it, Robb stepped away, his clothes drenched red. He had to clear blood from his eyes.

Rickard Karstark strode forward and spat upon the bloody corpse. "Good riddance."


End file.
